Savoirs

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) can be a useful tool to measure the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector. However, computing the WEAI in its current form involves large data requirements, resulting in lengthy surveys with several questions on various dimensions and indicators within each dimension. This paper proposes a reduced version of the WEAI, or the R-WEAI, and examines two possible approaches to reduce the data requirements while ensuring comparability to the full WEAI.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women are prerequisites for the eradication of poverty and hunger. First and foremost, gender inequalities and discrimination represent fundamental violations of the human rights of women. In addition, it is well recognized that gender inequality and discrimination undermine agricultural productivity globally,1 negatively impact children’s health and nutrition, and erode outcomes across social and economic development indicators.

Much work on rural women’s empowerment has focused on the need to expand women’s access to productive resources, which can allow them to increase their productivity. However, much more attention needs to be directed at underlying gender inequalities such as gender-biased institutions, social norms, and customs that negatively impact women’s work (paid and unpaid), livelihoods and well-being. Within food systems, these biases manifest themselves in limiting women’s access to productive resources, to services (such as finance and training), to commercial opportunities and social protection (including maternity protection). These manifestations may be regarded as symptoms, therefore, rather than drivers, of gender inequality.

 

La présente note pratique fournit des orientations sur la prise en compte du ciblage de la pauvreté, de l’égalité des sexes et de l’autonomisation des femmes dans la conception des projets du FIDA, des travaux préparatoires à la rédaction du rapport, en passant par la mission de conception.

Le ciblage de la pauvreté, l'égalité des sexes et l'autonomisation des femmes sont les pierres angulaires de l'action menée par le FIDA pour réduire la pauvreté rurale et l'insécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle.