Photo Credit Goes Here

Photo credit: 2006 Freweni Gebre Mariam/IFPRI

Simone Passarelli, International Food Policy Research InstituteDecember 4th, 2015, Dupont Summit, Washington, D.C.

Tapping Irrigation’s Potential for Women’s Empowerment: Findings from Ethiopia and Tanzania

U.S. GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

PRESENTATION

• Gender-irrigation pathways• Discussion of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture

Index (WEAI) used for this study• Findings from Ethiopia• Findings from Tanzania• Conclusions and next steps

GENDER-IRRIGATION LINKAGES• There are five main pathways by which we hypothesize

gender and irrigation are linked:– Production: Improved maternal and child nutrition through

increased diversity and quantity foods – Income: Improved maternal and child nutrition and/or

increased household incomes– Water Supply: Improved environmental conditions for better

maternal and child health outcomes; reduced time spent collecting water

– Empowerment: Improved income generation and decision-making power for women

– Health Risks: Reduced health and/or nutritional status through waterborne diseases, pollution/contamination of water sources and environmental conditions

See Domenech, 2015 paper in Global Food Security

Photo Source: IWMI Flikr

Potential Pathways through which Irrigation Influences Nutrition and Health Outcomes and Women’s

Empowerment

Source: Domenech 2015

2005-6

Jan Feb Mar April

May

June

July Aug

Sept

Oct Nov

Dec

Height-for-Age Z-Scores of children under 3 in

India

NFHS Data

Lokshin and Radyakin 2012

Issue of Seasonality and Climate Change: Potential for irrigation to address these challenges

0.2 is the median impact of complementary feeding interventions

Irrigated Agricultural Production and Gender• Improvements in production through irrigation may have

positive impacts on women through improved health status of themselves and their children

• Impact of irrigation on production outcomes depends on who adopts and for what purpose

– Gender differences in crop choices: men may plant cash crops while women may focus on homestead gardens/consumption crops

– Cash crops have potential nutrition linkages through income effect

– Direct potential for irrigated homestead garden production to improve nutrition outcomes (Olney et al. 2009; Iannotti et al. 2009)

The role of gender is highly contextual

Photo Source: IWMI, Ethiopia

Improved Water Supply and Gender• Irrigation water may be used for other purposes such

as drinking, washing, bathing or other productive purposes (e.g. livestock watering, aquaculture)

• Multiple uses of irrigation water may be unplanned or by design (van Koppen et al. 2009)

• Greater water for domestic purposes as a result of irrigation resulted in lower diarrhea and stunting in Pakistan (Van der Hoel et al. 2002)

• Time savings from water collection; women can spend up to 3 hours per day on water collection depending on context (James 2002)

• Water, sanitation and hygiene may play a significant role in chronic undernutrition (Humphrey 2009)

*The extent to which women are involved in the design of irrigation systems may encourage more multiple uses of irrigation water

Health Risks Pathway• Increased risk of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and

dengue– Microdam construction in Ethiopia led to more malaria (Ghebreyesus

et al. 1999; Ersado 2005)– Ijumba and Lindsay (2001) find irrigation does not increase malaria,

except in areas of unstable transmission– Relationship depends on many factors: socioeconomic status, vector

control programs, presence of cattle• Negative health outcomes from increased pollution (especially

pesticides)– Clarke et al. 1997 found greater symptoms of headache, blurred

vision, nausea/vomiting among irrigation workers in Ghana

*Any gender-differentiated outcomes depend on gender distribution of labor

ABOUT THE ILSSI PROJECT• The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small-

Scale Irrigation, a project of the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, is a five-year project in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania aimed at benefiting the region’s farmers by improving effective use of scarce water supplies through interventions in small-scale irrigation

• Activities include field interventions with water management technologies, capacity building, research on irrigation-nutrition-gender linkages, and provision of data and analysis of empirical models of irrigation impacts (IDSS)

THE ILSSI SURVEY• IFPRI’s activities include collection of survey data

in all three countries, as well as analysis of irrigation linkages with gender, nutrition and health

• IFPRI is conducting household surveys in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana at the baseline and endline of the ILSSI project

• Topics of the survey include:– Crop & livestock inputs, production and practices– Household and women’s dietary diversity– Child health, diet, feeding and anthropometry– Household shocks, assets, credit– Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

(WEAI)

THE WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN AGRICULTURE INDEX

• The WEAI measures the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector using the 5 domains of empowerment (5DE) to the right and the Gender Parity Index

• Both of these scores are weighted and aggregated to create the WEAI

• WEAI is on a scale from zero to one, with higher values = greater empowerment

Initial WEAI Results from Ethiopia and Tanzania

WEAI IrrigatorsGender

Parity IndexNon-

irrigators

Gender Parity Index

Contributors to disempowerment

Ethiopia 0.82 .9 0.85 .91

• Group membership• Leisure time• Speaking in public• Credit access• Control over use of income

Tanzania 0.88 .96 0.86 .92

• Group membership• Credit access• Leisure time• Speaking in public• Autonomy in production

HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITIONEthiopia Tanzania

Non-irrigatorsn=185

Irrigatorsn=284

p-value of two-sided ttest

Non-irrigatorsn=224

Irrigatorsn=227

p-value of two-sided ttest

Mean Mean Mean Mean Household food insecurity access scale

5.78 4.04 0.000 3.92 2.58 0.0004

Female dietary diversity score

3.69 3.58 0.293 3.71 4.20 0.0010

Household dietary diversity

5.69 6.06 0.002 4.88 5.63 0.0002

IRRIGATION, GENDER AND DECISIONMAKING IN ETHIOPIA

Major decision maker on plot Is the plot irrigated?Yes No

Husband 27% 32%Wife 6% 5%Joint Husband and Wife 60% 48%Wife and adult children 2% 2%Husband and brothers 1% 1%Husband and tenant 3% 10%Total 98% 98%

Total irrigated plots in sample = 23%

CROP CHOICE AND DECISION MAKING IN ETHIOPIAPlot Decision-Making for Irrigators Plot Decision-Making for Non-Irrigators

Starch Pulse Veget. Fruit

Cash crop, ined. Total Starch Pulse Veget. Fruit

Cash crop, ined. Total

Husband 28% 29% 37% 26% 23% 240 Husband 31% 33% 31% 39% 33% 910Wife 5% 6% 5% 4% 8% 58 Wife 5% 4% 2% 1% 6% 144

Joint Husband and Wife 59% 59% 51% 68% 62% 538

Joint Husband and Wife 45% 46% 63% 55% 53% 1413

Adult children 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1

Adult children 0% 0% 1% 0% 0% 8

Husband and

parent 1% 0% 0% 0% 2% 11

Husband and

parent 2% 3% 1% 2% 2% 54

Husband and

tenant 5% 6% 4% 0% 2% 24

Husband and

tenant 14% 11% 1% 0% 2% 289Total 100% 100% 98% 98% 97% 872 Total 96% 97% 99% 97% 97% 2818

DECISIONMAKING ON IRRIGATION IN ETHIOPIA

Women’s Responses: Ethiopia

How much input did you have in making decisions about…

How much input did you have in decisions on the use of income generated from…

Irrigated food crop farming

Irrigated cash crop farming

Irrigated food crop farming

Irrigated cash crop farming

No Input 0% 2% 0% 1%Input into very few decisions 14% 15% 13% 16%Input into some decisions 52% 53% 51% 53%Input into most decisions 23% 16% 23% 15%Input into all decisions 11% 15% 13% 15%Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

DECISIONMAKING ON IRRIGATION IN TANZANIAWomen’s Responses: Tanzania

How much input did you have in making decisions about…

How much input did you have in decisions on the use of income

generated from…

Irrigated food crop farming

Irrigated cash crop farming

Irrigated food crop farming

Irrigated cash crop farming

No input 0% 0% 1% 0%Input into very few decisions 9% 11% 11% 14%

Input into some decisions 23% 31% 26% 30%

Input into most decisions 30% 24% 29% 23%

Input into all decisions 37% 34% 34% 34%Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS

• Irrigation and gender seem to indeed be linked: however, whether this relationship is beneficial or not remains inconclusive

• The ILSSI survey has provided a baseline that will allow us to monitor these relationships over time (especially in Ghana)

• The relationship between irrigation and gender likely depends on a multitude of factors, such as crop type, household structure, local extension system biases, and existing intra-household decisionmaking structures that are difficult to tease out with our sample size

NEXT STEPS• Look at the different domains of the WEAI to observe their relationship with

irrigation

• Continue crop level analysis, to see whether empowerment has a relationship with crop choice (fruits, vegetables, cash crops, cereals etc.)

• We are currently preparing a paper on the relationship between irrigation and maternal and child nutrition

• We plan to investigate these linkages further and welcome your feedback and suggestions for research directions

THANK YOU!

IRRIGATION AND CROP CHOICE

Is the plot irrigated?Yes No

Starch 8% 58%Pulse 2% 9%Vegetable 24% 3%Fruit 14% 6%

Cashcrop, inedible 52% 15%Fallow/cover 1% 6%Oilcrop 0% 2%Total 100% 100%

Production Pathway• Higher yields due to use with improved varieties & complementary inputs (e.g. Burney et al

2010: microirrigation yield gains, Benin)• Growing in the lean season (e.g. Aseyehen et al 2012: crops planted 2-3 times compared

to rainfed production in Ethiopia)• Some evidence that greater production/more crop diversity as a result of irrigation leads to

greater intake or improved diets:– Consumption of more vegetables among irrigating HH in the Sudano-Sahel led to less food insecurity

(Burney et al. 2010)– HH in Mali with irrigation had greater calorie intake (Dillon 2008)– Greater crop diversity? (Namara et al. 2005, India)– No difference? (Namara et al. 2011, Ghana)– More monocropping? (Hossain et al. 2005, Bangladesh)– Production diversity does not always led to dietary diversity (Sibhatu et al. 2015) – More production of vegetables and fruits (Fraiture and Giordano 2014) and cash crops (Burney et al

2013; Nkonya et al 2011)

Irrigation may increase agricultural production, and potentially nutritional outcomes for women and children

Potential increase in gross revenue per hectare from small-scale irrigation

Source: IFPRI (2010)

Irrigation can impact millions in Africa

SSA: motor pumps • 185 million potential rural beneficiaries• Net revenues up to US$22 billion/yr

Tanzania: motor pumps could benefit 2-4 million people (8-12% of rural households)

Crop Low-input, rainfed yield (t/ha)

High input, irrigated yield increase (%)

Maize 1.0 141-195

Paddy 0.9 270-283

Groundnuts 0.7 238-251

SSA: Potential yield improvements from AWM investments

Source: http://awm-solutions.iwmi.org

Income Pathway• Irrigation as a source of income through market sales of

surplus– Food expenditures higher among irrigating HH in South Africa

(Sinyolo et al. 2014)– Greater health spending (e.g. malaria treatment and prevention)– Market access/infrastructure is key (Chazovachiii 2012—lack of

market access limits income generation potential of irrigation, Zimbabwe)

• Employment generation due to increased productivity and expanded production calendar

• Again, gender is key—who controls the income from sale of crops and from ag employment will influence health and nutrition outcomes

Potential Pathways through which Irrigation Influences Nutrition and Health Outcomes and

Women’s Empowerment Production pathway* Income pathway* Water supply pathway* Health risks pathway* Women’s empowerment pathway*

*Gender plays a key role in all pathways

Source: Domenech 2015