Knowledge

This paper explores aspects of promoting rural women’s leadership in producers’ organizations (POs). Despite the vast amount of work that women perform in the agriculture sector, their role remains largely unrecognized. The concerns and issues of women farmers are scarcely heard at the local, national and global levels. One reason for this silence is that there are not enough women in leadership positions to be able to represent the interests of rural women.
This shortage is compounded by women’s lack of voice in decision-making processes at all levels − from households to rural organizations − and in policymaking.

The following study was designed by IFAD in order to contribute to the knowledge about the relationship between gender, water investment and time saving. It is also intended to contribute to gender mainstreaming in IFAD’s water projects. The focus of the study is to see how much time women and men gain when they have improved access to sources of water and to establish what individuals, particularly women, do with the time they save by not having to walk long distances in search of water. The study further aims to discover to what extent the projects/investments contribute to reducing drudgery and to achieving equitable workloads between men and women. The survey targeted ongoing projects from the five regions in which IFAD operates that were either in their second phase or a mature stage of operation. In each project, one community was covered and 24 households were targeted. The survey successfully covered seven communities and 140 households and was mainly conducted through project officers facilitated by country programme managers or country programme officers.

This case study illustrates how the Family Life Model (household methodology) has been used effectively in Uganda, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context. 

With a small grant, INBAR has innovated Household Charcoal (HHC) production from cooking with firewood into a new livelihood opportunity and sustainable value chain for the economic empowerment of poor rural women. Women from poor rural households in Ethiopia, India and Tanzania were trained to put out fires when they had finished cooking to prevent smouldering, collect household charcoal through the clusters and process it into briquettes. INBAR has also developed the NCPP Social Enterprise Model which is an Innovative & Inclusive Institutional system to strengthen the rural development ecosystem and enable safe investment opportunities for rural women.

This How To Do Note provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement Household Methodologies (HHMs). It describes activities at the household level, different approaches for implementing HHMs, service providers and the facilitator system, and the role of the community and the wider environment. The main points to consider when incorporating HHMs in project design and implementation are noted.

IFAD has achieved significant results in promoting innovative gender mainstreaming and pro-poor approaches and processes in its operations, making this an area of IFAD’s comparative advantage. 

Three quarters of the poor population in West and Central Africa – about 90 million people – live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. More than 60 per cent of the active population work in the agriculture sector. Women’s share – estimated at 70 per cent in the region as a whole and 89 per cent in the Sahel – continues to rise. Socio-politically, West and Central Africa is still very fragile, with the highest concentration of countries with IFAD operations. Despite this fragility and the poverty that affects over half the population, virtually all countries in the region have made considerable progress over the past decade, particularly in education, health and income redistribution. 

In Yemen, a community-led project for fostering women's empowerment has imporoved the food security of thousands of landless and smallholder famers living in the poorest areas of the country.  

From 2004 to late 2012, the Dhamar Participatory Rural Development Project, cofunded by IFAD and the Government of Yemen, addressed the needs of the rural population in the Dhamar Governorate.  By ensuring the participation of rural people in the decision-making processes and income-generating activities, the project improved the food security of substience farmers and their families in the villages of Dhamar.

In Jordan, the success of a project co-funded by IFAD largely rested on how quickly rural women were able to learn about borrowing money and setting up and running their own small enterprises.