Women S Empowerment In Agrifood Governance Weagov Assessment Framework A Pilot Study In Nigeria

Women’s equal participation and leadership in political and public life can boost a country’s long-run economic growth, foster social inclusion, and help countries reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Beyond these important outcomes, women’s inclusion in public life is a basic human right: women deserve a role in making decisions, controlling resources, and shaping policies. Despite the importance of women’s voices and their empowerment in policy and decision-making processes, it is far easier to lament their absence than to define and measure them. We know that political empowerment, measured in terms of the share of women in government ministries and parliament, is low and is the weakest dimension in the Global Gender Gap. Yet such national statistics, while important and informative, risk mismeasuring women’s participation and influence in public life and do not give policymakers and advocacy organizations traction on specific gaps and opportunities for increasing women’s voice in policymaking. With this situation in mind and focusing on agrifood systems, which are crucial for delivering the SDGs, we developed an assessment framework—Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood Governance (WEAGov)— to assess women’s voice and empowerment in national policy processes in agrifood systems. This paper presents the first pilot-testing of WEAGov in Nigeria. In this paper, we present how the WEAGov tool works in the Nigerian context, analyze the data, and provide diagnostic on the status of women’s voice and empowerment in the agrifood policy process. As discussed in this paper, the pilot-testing in Nigeria provides useful lessons toward improving the measurement for future use and provides valuable policy insights on critical entry points for increasing women’s voice and empowerment in the national agrifood policy process.

Inclusive governance and policies can promote adaptation to climate change as well as resilience of women in the agrifood system. The Women's empowerment in Agrifood Governance (WEAGov) is a diagnostic tool developed by IFPRI to help evaluate the extent to which women are empowered across the policy cycle related to agrifood systems. WEAGov provides a way to identify gaps and opportunities to raise women’s voice and agency at different stages of the policy cycle, and provides a basis for monitoring progress in women’s empowerment in agrifood systems governance over time. The workshop described here took place on May 11, 2023 in Abuja, Nigeria and included policymakers, researchers, and private sector representatives. The workshop familiarized stakeholders with the WEAGov assessment framework and collected valuable inputs and feedback on a recent WEAGov pilot study conducted in Nigeria. While participants largely validated the WEAGov indicators, they recommended key areas for improved measurement which will be incorporated into the assessment framework.

WEAGov assesses the state of women’s voice and agency in national agrifood policymaking. Like IFPRI’s Kaleidoscope Model, it adopts a policy process approach, looking at every stage of the policy cycle — from why certain issues become salient and how policy solutions to address them are designed, to the organizational strategies and budgetary outlays that shape policy implementation, to how policies are assessed against their objectives. Within each of these stages, WEAGov examines whether women are being considered, whether their voices are included, and whether they are influencing actions and decisions.

This paper develops a new framework to measure and track women’s empowerment in governance of countries’ agrifood systems. All too often, women’s needs, priorities, and voices are missing from the policy process, even when women may be disproportionately affected by shocks or have distinct policy preferences. The Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood Systems Governance (WEAGov) is an assessment framework to help countries and stakeholders measure the extent of inclusion and leadership of women in agrifood systems governance and to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. WEAGov looks across three stages of the policy cycle: policy design, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. At each stage of the policy cycle, WEAGov asks three questions central to women’s empowerment in governance: Are women considered? Are women included? And are women influencing? This paper describes the process of conceptualizing and developing the WEAGov assessment framework by drawing together evidence, experience, and lessons from the literature and from over 30 stakeholder consultations across several countries and sectors to develop a practical and theoretically grounded framework.

In this paper, the authors describe the adaptation and validation of a project-level WEAI (or pro-WEAI) that agricultural development projects can use to identify key areas of women’s (and men’s) disempowerment, design appropriate strategies to address identified deficiencies, and monitor project outcomes related to women’s empowerment. The 12 pro-WEAI indicators are mapped to three domains: intrinsic agency (power within), instrumental agency (power to), and collective agency (power with). A gender parity index compares the empowerment scores of men and women in the same household. The authors describe the development of pro-WEAI, including: (1) pro-WEAI’s distinctiveness from other versions of the WEAI; (2) the process of piloting pro-WEAI in 13 agricultural development projects during the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, phase 2 (GAAP2); (3) analysis of quantitative data from the GAAP2 projects, including intrahousehold patterns of empowerment; and (4) a summary of the findings from the qualitative work exploring concepts of women’s empowerment in the project sites. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from pro-WEAI and possibilities for further development of empowerment metrics.

This book addresses some key strategic questions related to agriculture in the context of major contemporary developments and emerging challenges in Nepal such as the changing role of agriculture with economic growth, structural transformation in reducing poverty, improving nutritional outcomes, and addressing the challenges of climate change. The book also suggests policy measures to improve the delivery of critical inputs and services and ensure the participation of marginal and smallholders in high-value chains. Further, it discusses how the new federal system and governance structure will affect the delivery of agricultural technology and services. The book is divided into five parts. Part I discusses macro-issues in the agriculture sector, while Part II focuses on agricultural productivity growth and its main drivers. The third part explores diversification in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors by farmers and other rural people for livelihood improvement, while the fourth part deals with agricultural trade and marketing issues, highlighting policy implications and recommendations in the areas of immediate focus and further research. Lastly, Part V addresses institutions and governance issues, which are vital for agricultural development. In the final chapter, the editors summarize and synthesize the book’s main findings and develop a policy agenda for addressing the many challenges faced by the agriculture sector in Nepal, so as to make it more productive, competitive, sustainable, and inclusive. The book offers a rich source of analytical information on various aspects of agricultural development in Nepal and will be of immense value to policymakers, development partners, civil society, students, and those interested in the economic and agricultural development of not only Nepal, but also other developing countries.

Inclusive agricultural value chains (VCs) are potential drivers for poverty reduction, food security, and women’s empowerment. This report assesses the implementation of the Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education Training for Women Program (ATVET4Women) that aims to support women with vocational training and market linkages in priority agricultural value chains. This report focuses on Malawi, one of the six pilot countries of the ATVET4Women; and focuses on vegetable value chains in which some non-formal training sessions have been conducted as of October 2019. This report presents (1) program experience of stakeholders; (2) evidence of program benefits and challenges among ATVET4Women non-formal training graduates; and (3) baseline data on value chain and empowerment indicators, using a pilot household survey-based instrument for measuring women’s empowerment in agricultural value chains (pro-WEAI for market inclusion) and supplementary qualitative research. Results show graduates’ satisfaction and appreciation of the training provided, and some graduates reported having access to more lucrative markets as a result of the training. However, positive changes in several outcome indicators were reported by only some graduates: 30 percent of graduates reported increased production and sales. There is no significant difference in the reported changes and levels of vegetable production and income between graduates and non-graduates. Qualitative findings suggest that constraints to accessing agricultural inputs and funds to upgrade their production may be why there are no measured differences. Results on empowerment status reveal that 73 percent of women and 85 percent of men in the sample are empowered, and 73 percent of the sample households achieved gender parity. The main contributor of disempowerment among women and men is lack of work balance and autonomy in income. Fewer women achieved adequacy in work balance than men. Adequacies in attitudes about domestic violence, respect among household members, input in productive decisions, and asset ownership are generally high for both women and men, but significantly lower for women. While this report is mainly descriptive and further analysis is ongoing, it offers some lessons and practical implications for improving ATVET4Women program implementation and its outcomes on women’s market access, incomes, and empowerment.