FR1.2: Understanding Community Perceptions of Women Empowerment for Agricultural and Rural development

The concept of women empowerment has been widely embraced in development efforts aimed at achieving gender equality outcomes. However, intended outcomes are not always achieved due to a disconnect between how the concept of women empowerment is perceived by target communities and development actors. An understanding of how targeted communities perceive women empowerment helps development actors design context specific women empowerment approaches suited to prevailing social cultural norms and perceptions of men and women. This study therefore aims at understanding perceptions of women empowerment by local communities in rural farming villages of Kiboga district in central Uganda. A qualitative case study design was used to collect data on community perceptions about women empowerment through key informants and sex-disaggregated focus group discussions. The data were coded using Atlas Ti and analyzed to identify themes. We found that men perceived an empowered woman as un-submissive, and a competitor to men's household head position. To women, an empowered woman was perceived as un-submissive, hardworking and taking over culturally assigned men's household responsibilities. As women get empowered, what do men become and at what cost to women? Findings indicate that an empowered woman takes over the responsibilities of an "ideal man" and this adds work burden to women and a backlash from men. In order to counter this, development agencies should target men and women and invest in interventions and approaches that transform local gender norms that dis-empower women. The study is ongoing and further data collection will be completed in August 2022

TH2.1: Empowerment without Transformation? A Scoping Review on Women Empowerment, Masculinities and Social norms in Agricultural Research

There is an increasing focus on re-thinking women's "empowerment" strategic interventions in order to achieve meaningful transformation in gender norms. This move is increasingly characterized by initiatives that deliberately seek to engage women and men, highlighting not only how women's lives in agricultural communities are interwoven with men's lives but also calls for ‘involvement' of men in women's empowerment work to address the underlying social norms, attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate gender inequalities. How have social categories "women", "men" and notions of empowerment and masculinities been conceptualized in agricultural research on women's empowerment? How have these concepts been deployed in agricultural research and with what implications? This paper draws from a literature review. Search terms included "Women's empowerment", "masculinities", "gender norms", "agency" "Power relations", "Rural masculinities" "male involvement in agriculture". Drawing on literature within agri food system, seed systems, nutrition sensitive agriculture in different regions of Africa and Asia, the paper argues that conceptualization of categories women, men, masculinities and femininities and the approaches drawn therefrom (the assumptions we work with about women and men) have potential to transform and/or reproduce unequal gender power relations

TH2.1: Who is a man? Understanding the local normative climate for transformative interventions in rural farming communities of Central Uganda

Local gender normative climate refers to how norms in a community interact with men and women agency- their ability to make strategic life choices. Understanding the normative climate includes unpacking the community's expectations of what it means to be a man "masculinity norms". Such normative factors interact with and constrain opportunities for women's equitable participation in agriculture, yet most women empowerment literature focuses on individual women level factors. This ongoing study aims to determine masculinity norms that affect women's ability to make strategic choices within the Sasakawa Africa's Nutrition sensitive agricultural extension project intervention areas in Kiboga District, Central Uganda. The study utilized an interpretive qualitative case study with data collected from sex disagreggated focus group discussions with intervention beneficiaries. Findings indicate that the community expectation of who a man should be are along family formation and provisioning; dominance in household decision making and leadership; and community level participation. The normative structures also exempted men from participating in domestic chores and negative sanctions were experienced by men that did so. Gender roles espousing notions like "vegetable growing is a woman's domain" dissuaded men's engagement in this activity. Consequently, domestic chores on top of additional activities from vegetables growing under the project present an increased labor burden for women. Inability to make strategic life choices like attending training that would build their capacities in areas important for their development curtails their economic investments. This calls for development agents' deliberate efforts to engage both women and men to reframe norms and new behaviors that will foster gender equality and a harmoniously transformed community

Farmer preferred traits and genotype choices in Solanum aethiopicum L., Shum group

Research articleBackground: Solanum aethiopicum L. is a nutrient dense African indigenous vegetable. However, advancement of its improved varieties that can increase productivity, household income, and food security has not been prioritized. Further still, studies on some of the crops that have been worked have indicated that it is not a guarantee that the improved varieties will be accepted by the end users and therefore there is need to identify and profile what genotypes are of interest to farmers and their preferred traits through inclusive participatory evaluations. Methodology: Farmer participatory evaluations were conducted to profile farmers’ traits of interest and preferred genotypes. A total of 24 genotypes were established in three replications in 6 farms in 3 districts; Wakiso, Mukono, and Luwero as these are the major producing districts of the vegetable in Uganda. A total of 177 sex-disaggregated farmers were engaged in scoring the genotypes for pest, disease and drought tolerance, general appeal, leaf yield, leaf texture, and seed yield for best 10 genotypes under each variable. Results: Non-significant differences in trait (p > 0.05) and genotype preferences (p > 0.05) were obtained between men and women. The most desired farmer traits were seed and leaf yield, followed by pest and disease resistance. The overall preferred genotype in terms of disease and pest resistance, leaf yield, leaf texture, and seed yield were E12 followed by E11. Conclusion: Gender does not seem to influence farmer choices for the S. aethiopicum, Shum group, indicating an opportunity for single variety prototype advancement by breeders and dissemination by seed companies