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Extension in Relation to Women
Although women are intimately involved in cropping and livestock activities and in aspects of decision-making, the bulk of extension efforts in IFAD-funded projects have been directed at male heads-of-households.
The Yemen CPE concluded that too much was expected from rural womens’ development programmes that had to function under socially unfavourable conditions. These conditions, among others, include the limited number of Yemeni women available to manage programmes, the difficulty in identifying Arabic speaking female experts and the scarcity of qualified women for training as extension agents. However, it proved feasible to target rural women based on practical criteria which are target group and area-specific. In Egypt (114-EG & 157-EG) evaluations concluded that, as a first step, womens’ programmes should be given more weight by appointing experienced women at governorate level to advise extension. In Sudan, with the partial exception of one project (181-SU), rural women do not appear to have been targetted by extension in any specific manner in project design.
Experience from IFAD-financed projects strongly indicates that both project design and implementation should give more weight to women as beneficiaries and implementors of activities. Unless pressure is brought to bear, both at project design stage and during implementation, womens’ issues are likely to be ignored or side-lined.
An initial step in any IFAD-supported project should include a detailed socio-economic survey of the situation of rural women in the project area. The results of such a survey, together with a ‘pooling’ of locally available experience and the identification of reasons for past failures with women’s activities (if any) would establish a more solid basis for project activities.
The location of extension services in specific areas together with an emphasis on agriculture are potentially effective means of targetting rural women provided a mechanism can be devised through which well trained extensionists effectively interact with their female clients.
As ‘good intentions’ are unlikely to achieve results, adequate attention to rural women should be a condition for loan effectiveness and continuation of loan disbursement during the life of the project.
References:
1. Egypt - Minya Agricultural Development Project,114-EG R114EGBE, Interim Evaluation, 1992.
2. Egypt - Fayoum Agricultural Development Project,157-EG R157EGBE, Interim Evaluation, 1992.
3. Sudan - Western Savannah Development Project,181-EG R181SUAE, Mid-Term Evaluation, 1988.
4. Sudan - Country Portfolio Evaluation, CPE94 CESSU94E IFAD 1992.
5. Yemen - Country Portfolio Evaluation, CPE92 CESYE92E IFAD 1992.
6. Yemen - Southern Regional Agricultural Development Project, 202-YA, 1987.
