Volume 36, No. 4 ISSN 0149-3434 www.ifdc.org
IFDC An update on the work and progress of IFDC
IFDC Core Competency: Gender Equity is Key to Feeding the Hungry Women make up the vast majority of the world’s poor and more than half of the world’s illiterates are women. Also girls represent the majority of school-age children not in school. Caretakers of the family, women bear much of the responsibility for meeting basic needs, but they have more difficulty accessing the information and resources necessary to care for their families. IFDC staff members believe that building women’s capabilities and addressing gender inequality are crucial to transforming the lives of poor women and their families. When women are empowered, society benefits – family members are healthier, more children are able to go to school, agricultural productivity improves and incomes increase. “At least half of the planet’s 900 million subsistence farmers are women. The progress in helping these women do what they do better is far too slow,” said Margaret Catley-Carlson, patron of the Global Water Partnership and member of the IFDC board of directors. “Property issues impede her ability to get credit; social and decisional systems exclude her; and the basics of life – water and primary education – are too often not at hand. Fortunately, there is a whole new array of mechanisms that show promise: using crops as an asset for credit; building networks that must reach the rural farmer if the network itself is to thrive; and getting seeds, agro-inputs and market access information to her. These things will help. Political leaders could help more.”
Bangladeshi women attend a training workshop to become better farmers and entrepreneurs.
EurAsia Division
IFDC promotes gender equity in its projects, trainings and policy development. In Bangladesh, the Improved Livelihood for Sidr-Affected Rice Farmers (ILSAFARM) project was gendersensitive. Even though the vast majority of farm households are headed by men, ILSAFARM set a target of 10 percent female participation for all activities. By project’s end in December 2010,
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FEATURED ARTICLES 10 Years of Progress in IFDC’s Africa Divisions Kyrgyzstan/KAED Project Begin New Projects Featured in USAID’s FrontLines
IFDC Leads the Quest for ‘Intelligent’ Fertilizer
Core Competency (Continued from Page 1)
Improved methods of charcoal production are increasing income opportunities for rural women.
this target had been achieved in six of seven activities. In only one monitored activity – training of urea briquette producers – was participation of women below 10 percent. This was because women in Bangladesh play a lesser role in business (especially the fertilizer business) compared to men, particularly in rural areas. ILSAFARM was funded by USAID. The AAPI project is also facilitating opportunities for women. A 20 percent target was set for female participation and it has been met. In 2010, 222 meetings were held with 8,979 farmers; 1,794 (20 percent) of those were women. Women are being encouraged in micro-enterprise development, such as owning briquette machines. Interest in entrepreneurship has increased due to the success of other women briquetters. “In Bangladesh, women comprise half of the rural population. But inaccessibility to and control of resources, services and decision-making inhibit female participation in development project activities. These agricultural activities, access and 18
control patterns are shaped by structural factors (demographic, economic, legal and institutional) and also by cultural, religious and attitudinal factors,” said Ishrat Jahan, scientist-economist and IFDC resident representative. “Despite these constraints, we succeeded in bringing a large number of women into IFDC project activities. We adopted an approach of encouraging the wife, sister, daughter or mother of the farmer to actively participate in the dissemination of innovative technologies like FDP. This approach has proven very successful.”
East and Southern Africa Division
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a REC comprised of 19 African states. COMESA’s Regional Agricultural Inputs Program (COMRAP) is a two-year project, funded by the European Union Food Facility Program. As a facilitating partner, IFDC is implementing COMRAP’s agrodealer development component. The project is training 5,760 agro-dealers and 2,000 agro-dealer agents. As of June 2011, 5,126 agro-dealers and 1,600 agents have been trained across
eight countries. Of those trained, 2,253 are women. In addition, 114 trainers (including 32 women) received training of trainer instruction. They will now train agro-dealers and agents in their respective countries. The Catalyze Accelerated Agricultural Intensification for Social and Environmental Stability (CATALIST) project, funded by DGIS with oversight by the Royal Embassy of the Netherlands, is a five-year regional project implemented by IFDC and numerous partners. The project began in 2006 and has promoted agricultural intensification to help reinforce peace and increase environmental stability in the Central African nations of Burundi, DRC and Rwanda. CATALIST is promoting the adoption of new technologies, coupled with increased access to and use of agroinputs. Recognizing that women are the backbone of agriculture in the region, CATALIST has worked to transfer information and technology to women as well as men smallholder farmers. Of the more than 250,000 farmers trained by the CATALIST project, almost 50 percent have been women. “One of the things that really strikes me about the women involved in the CATALIST and SEW projects in Central Africa is their hope for a better future despite the years of war and its associated horrors,” said Dr. Deborah Hellums, IFDC senior program support specialist and program leader – agroeconomics research program. “Many of them live in areas ravaged by civil war, but together they organize and forge ahead, adopting the information and technologies promoted by IFDC to improve crop yields and to sell their produce in local markets. They are totally focused on making life better for their families, especially for their children.”
also assisted artisans in Mali to develop appropriate textile technologies and provided hand-held carders, a traditional tool used to prepare cotton for spinning, to more than 1,000 women. The Développement Economique à la Base par les Pôles d’Entreprise Agricoles (DEB-PEA) project in Mali organized training in business development and agro-input distribution in rural areas. In 2010, there were 10,789 participants, and 46 percent were women. The Strategic Alliance for Agricultural Development in Africa (SAADA) project, funded by DGIS, was comprised of three parts. The 1000s+ project, implemented in seven countries in West Africa, came under the umbrella of SAADA-A. The 1000s+ project signed almost 1,000 business agreements among nearly 6,000 producer organizations (including 2,660 women’s groups). 1000s+ successfully changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of men and women farmers. Women were given the tools to make better lives for themselves and their families. SAADA-C addressed agricultural intensification combined with a holistic approach to socio-agricultural issues such as gender equity, resource conservation, HIV/AIDS, school food programs and conflict prevention, across multiple projects.
The Livelihoods and Enterprises for Agricultural Development (LEAD) project, funded by USAID, is helping to raise rural agricultural productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers in Uganda. Utilizing the value chain approach to agricultural development, the project improves productivity through training and access to quality agro-inputs, and increases trade capacity and market competitiveness by building better market linkages. More than 1,250 agro-dealers have been trained by the project and 77 percent of those were women. LEAD is making a difference in the lives of Ugandan women and their families.
North and West Africa Division
The West Africa Cotton Improvement Program (WACIP) has increased incomes for male and female farmers, for both cotton and non-cotton crops by raising yields and improving agro-input use efficiency. During 2009-2010 the project trained 836,348 people, with 333,952 of those women. Training to assess and manage biotechnology‐ and biosafety-related risks and issues of genetically engineered cotton was provided to 4,023 people, of which 1,036 were women. WACIP also addressed improving the quantity, variety and quality of cotton products to increase incomes of cotton processors – ginners, artisans and textile industry workers. WACIP trained 1,319 artisans (1,072 women) and introduced the artisans to international design experts who helped them develop new textile products that were showcased at international fairs in New York and Ouagadougou. The project
A cotton artisan with a hand carder in Mali.
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Core Competency (Continued from Page 19) New Projects
IFDC has been included in two new projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania (see page 6). USAID awarded a five-year food security contract to the ACDI/VOCA SFSA team, a consortium of several food security and agricultural development organizations, including IFDC. The AGP-AMDE project will promote the value chain approach to boost agricultural growth and incomes for Ethiopian farmers. IFDC’s role in both projects is to improve agro-input supply and distribution systems and equip farmers with the incentives and capacity to use these inputs. One of the cross-cutting areas for AGP-AMDE is gender equity. In Ethiopia, women account for 60-80 percent of food production; agricultural output potentially could increase by 15-40 percent just by providing women with assets equal to those of men. The project will give priority to ensure that interventions include appropriate levels of participation by women as beneficiaries, agents of change and project partners.
The SFSA team (including IFDC) recently launched the USAIDfunded NAFAKA program to boost food security in Tanzania. The intent is to work with farmers (especially women) in the maize and rice value chains to build farmers’ incomes and improve rural families’ access to diverse and nutritional foods. IFDC recognizes the critical role that women play in agriculture around the world. Dedicated and determined women serve as beacons of hope for many poor rural villages. They are often the sole providers for their families and are usually faced with the difficult balance of work and childcare along with the care of other family members. In service to these women, IFDC projects and initiatives continue to focus on gender equity, female farmer and agro-dealer training, land use rights, social and financial equity and policy reform.
International Day of Rural Women According to the United Nations’ World Food Programme, women produce between 60 and 80 percent of food in most developing countries. Observed October 15, the International Day of Rural Women is an annual opportunity to recognize and support the multiple roles that these women play, most notably as farmers and small entrepreneurs. “To commemorate the 2011 International Day of Rural Women, it is appropriate to remember the late Wangari Maathai. Her great work in the areas of biodiversity and environment while involving Africa’s rural women stands out and will remain alive forever,” said AU Commissioner and member of the IFDC board of directors Rhoda Peace Tumusiime. “Africa’s daughters and granddaughters have Maathai’s contributions to look to for generations to come.” The first African woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, Maathai is best known for empowering village women to plant trees throughout Kenya. “The role of women in agriculture worldwide is so crucial to household food security and child nutrition, yet women’s immense local knowledge often goes unrecognized, unutilized and unappreciated. Every mother wants to see her child healthy and her family happy,” said Prof. Dr. Ruth Oniang’o, member of the VFRC board of advisors. “She wants to have the ability and knowledge to access and farm land, to harvest and process the produce and to be able to feed her children a healthy diet. We must begin to channel resources to women’s programs in a meaningful way, supporting local initiatives and organizations 20
Rwandan women planting trees during National Tree Week.
and also targeting women-led NGOs. Rural women must lead the way in ensuring household food security and eradication of hunger. Rural women in agriculture matter.” Representing over a quarter of the world’s population, rural women greatly contribute to both the well-being of their families and the development of rural economies. IFDC salutes these women for their commitment to improve their lives while assisting the world to improve food security.