This brief explains the concept of gender equality in advisory services and discusses the opportunities that gender equality in rural advisory services can create for global and local food production, women’s economic empowerment, household food security, and nutrition. It summarises experiences of how gender equality can be pursued in advisory services and provides some practical examples.

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This book makes the bold claim that empowered women and men are better, more successful farmers who can make the most of the opportunities around them. We argue that there is a causal relation between more equal gender relations in the household and in the community, and better agricultural outcomes. The one underpins the other. This is a radical thing to say, because it means that the standard development interventions – more extension services, better information, more fertilizer, better machinery – will not fully achieve their goals unless women and men are on equal footing, able to make rational economic decisions unhindered by gender norms that limit what is “appropriate” for women or for men to do, or to be.
Empowering women as decision-makers in all areas of their lives is challenging and exciting. It is a key to poverty reduction. Transforming gender relations will help to make smallholder agriculture and associated development efforts more effective and efficient, with knock-on effects for a variety of development outcomes.

This case study explores the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Ghana’s women extension volunteer (WEV) model. The WEV model is a peer-to-peer extension approach that uses community-based female volunteers to increase agricultural information dissemination in rural northern Ghana. The model is part of a national volunteering flagship program of VSO Ghana, a non-governmental organization (NGO). It was initiated in 2009 as a joint effort with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA). The case study is based on fieldwork performed from August through November 2012 in nine districts across the three northern regions of Ghana. The study specifically explores what the volunteer model has been able to achieve and in what ways it effectively increases extension services for female farmers. The primary benefits of the model are identified as strengthening farmer groups and enhancing the liaison between farmers and public sector extension agents and NGOs. The study also covers factors that can determine the sustainability of this model, such as recruitment, program development and support from MoFA. The study concludes that, although the volunteers perform some extension duties, they currently have limited abilities in providing technical agricultural information or introducing farmers to agricultural innovations or new technologies. As it stands, their role is complementary to that of public extension agents in that they can expand gender-specific extension services by liaising between service providers and women farmers in areas already being served and helping facilitate dissemination of information in their communities, but they cannot be expected to replace agricultural extension personnel.

A review of land reforms in fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. The report examines the role of Development coperation in land reforms and the extent to which donor organisations have addressed cocerns related to gender equality

Evidence from several African countries suggests that female farmers are as efficient as male farmers, but are less productive because they are denied equal access to productive inputs and human capital. If their access to these inputs were at par with men’s access, total agricultural output in these countries could increase by up to 30% and
increase agricultural output by up to 4%.

Integrating gender in programs, policies and projects thus aims to reduce gender disparities and enhance women’s participation in the economic development and their empowerment.

In 2012, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) adopted a gender strategy to guide the integration of gender in its work. The purpose of this manual is to provide operational guidance to ILRI staff and partners on how to integrate gender into the project cycle in accordance with the gender strategy.

The Brundtland Report (1987) still provides the most quoted definition of sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Acknowledging the importance of gender equality for sustainable development, it also highlights the varied interactions between social, economic and ecological dimensions of development. Nevertheless, sustainable development is still often seen primarily as environmental sustainablility, with gender concerns often taking a backseat.
Currently the international community is discussing the elaboration of a new framework of development goals, possibly called sustainable development goals (SDG’s), which are supposed to replace the Millenium Development Goals in 2015. This is a good time to discuss and conceptualize what sustainable development actually means in the current context of crises on many fronts (economic crises, climate change, rising inequalities, poverty etc.).

This case study explores the Voluntary Service Overseas
(VSO) Ghana’s women extension volunteer (WEV) model.
The WEV model is a peer-to-peer extension approach that
uses community-based female volunteers to increase
agricultural information dissemination in rural northern
Ghana. The model is part of a national volunteering flagship
program of VSO Ghana, a non-governmental organization
(NGO).

A guide for extension workers

The guide aims to highlight major issues affecting rural households, and to provide users with resources and tools for collecting, analysing and sharing information about the constraints, opportunities and priorities faced by communities, households and individual household members.

The guide promotes the use of gender-sensitive and participatory approaches as a means of achieving sustainable development that puts people at the centre of the issues, analysis and solutions.

TechnicalNote from MEAS

The most recent shifts in agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) parallel the growing complexity of the global food system. A diversity of actors, from smallholder farmers to multinational food corporations, each with different needs, objectives, strengths and weaknesses now operate in the sector. Not only do they each have their own concerns, they may work in different ways with different partners, increasing the challenges of coordinating the different elements of domestic and internationally-oriented agricultural value chains. Women, who are estimated to comprise about 43% of the agricultural labor force in developing country agriculture (FAO 2011: 5), are among this group of new and newly recognized actors in these networks. Managing the global food system must contend with demands for efficiency and sustainability while at the same time encouraging greater equity in access and participation.

A workshop presentation

Synthesis of the e-­‐discussion of SDC’s e+i network from 19 March to 10 April 2012

"How can the Making Markets Work for the Poor Framework work for poor women and for poor men?" This is the underlying question of a discussion paper for an M4P Women's economic empowerment (WEE) framework prepared by Dr. Linda Jones on behalf of the M4P Hub. In order to achieve WEE, through M4P or any other approach, the paper recognises the need to define economic empowerment and its main elements. The four elements of WEE proposed in the paper were used as guide during the e-­‐discussion as well as to structure this synthesis. Besides the discussion of these four elements, some practical tips were compiled from the discussion and are presented
at the end of this synthesis paper.

Agriculture + Rural Development Network Brief No 1

Targeting women in rural advisory services (RAS) was chosen by members of SDC's Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) network as an important challenge that needs to be addressed. This short paper takes this challenge as a starting point and identifies ways forward - drawing from the inputs of ARD network members to an e-discussion held in September 2011.

Increasing gender equality in access to rural advisory services has the potential to make important con-tributions to a fairer playing field for men and women, and to provide women with their right full potential to contribute to and benefit from economic opportunities in the agricultural sector. Moreover, equal opportunities for men and women are an important precondition for increasing productivity in smallholder farming in most developing countries. Recent publications have emphasised the need for increased gender equality in the agricultural sector . Several organisations are concerned with the lack of results in this area and are therefore seeking guidance on how rural advisory services can fully roll out their potential for inclusion of women into the process of agricultural development on equal terms with men .