Gender-smart agriculture: What, Why and How

This InfoNote expands on the AICCRA gender case study on women-targeted strategies to develop gender-responsive CSA and explains the broad steps and indicators to implement, monitor and measure gender-responsive CSA. It highlights a Gender-Smart Agriculture (GSA) approach that considers women’s priorities and access to technology, resources, and information to support climate resilience through equality and agency. GSA targets gender equality and empowerment of women and men, taking CCAFS research beyond diagnostic and equity approaches towards research to inform, catalyze and target CSA solutions for women and youth, increase their control over productive assets and resources (e.g., climate information, climate finance), and increase their leadership and decision-making (e.g., in local and national climate adaptation) . This expanded approach also includes a focus on social inclusion, involving gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, disability, and age (youth and seniors)

Reaching for the Top: Advancing Women in Agriculture Research

Global data demonstrates that women are less represented in agricultural research and advance at lower rates than men. A leaky pipeline effect diminishes the representation of women along the progression to senior manager and decision maker. In Africa, women make up only 25% of agricultural scientists , and a much lower proportion of decision makers on agriculture and climate at national and global levels. This InfoNote expands on the AICCRA case study on promoting women’s entry and advancement in agriculture and climate research, in terms of strategies to support women’s positive career experience and progression in AICCRA. It details the activities as well as the action points to monitor the activities

Gender-smart agriculture: An agenda for gender and socially inclusive climate-resilient agriculture

The working paper reviews the evolution of the CCAFS gender and social inclusion agenda towards gender equality and empowerment in relation to climate resilient agriculture. Climate change research typically shows glaring gaps in understanding the different adaptive strategies and capacities of men and women, and the technologies, practices, and enabling environments that will empower women. CCAFS approach to gender, therefore, has been to understand the gender gap in agriculture under climate change (CCAFS Phase I) while also researching climate-smart solutions to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment (CCAFS Phase II). A decade of gender research in CCAFS has led to the generation of a ‘Gender-Smart Agriculture’ approach. Gender research in CCAFS Phase I attempted to explore men’s and women’s adaptation options and strategies (individual, household, or collective) and the differences in their capacity to adapt. Data collected through household and intra-household surveys across CCAFS Climate Smart Village sites, highlighted influential findings on gender and CSA research by CCAFS and partners to date. The CCAFS work in Phase II (2017-2021) on Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) expanded on this research to develop an approach, strategies, and monitoring frameworks for a gender-responsive, or gender-smart CSA. CCAFS targeted research to inform, catalyse and target CSA solutions to women and other vulnerable groups, increase the control of disadvantaged groups over productive assets and resources (e.g., climate information, climate finance), and increase participation in decision-making (e.g., in local and national climate adaptation strategies). GSI has also provided technical and funding support on gender and youth to policy analyses, inputs, and submissions (including NDCs and national climate policy), as well as capacity development to policy makers on gender in global and national climate policy. In addition, keeping in mind the importance of equipping practitioners and policy makers with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention approaches, CCAFS has worked with partners to develop guidelines and toolkits for supporting this work

AICCRA- Gender and Social Inclusion Workshop Report

The report is a short summary of the two-day AICCRA Gender and Social Inclusion Workshop. The workshop was aimed at initiating the development of a streamlined approach to these gender activities across AICCRA and was attended by 36 participants. The sessions included discussions on the two case studies, a brief introduction the broad GSI components of AICCRA including gender integration across prioritization, implementation and monitoring & evaluation stages of the project and the GSI scaling framework. Additionally, all the six AICCRA country teams presented their GSI activities for the project

Integrating Gender into the Climate-Smart Village Approach of Scaling out Adaptation Options in Agriculture

As a step towards building climate resilience, a USAID funded project aimed at scaling out climate-smart agriculture through the CSV approach in Madhya Pradesh in India, is providing an enabling platform to women farmers to manage and lead climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions in their villages. This info note presents preliminary information on each of the major steps of a CSV approach and its components and linking them with gender and CSA. It focuses on the initial findings of a baseline assessment, the process of CSV formation and the initial output of CSA implementation (for Rabi/monsoon season) with due consideration of gender dynamics in agriculture

Expanding Opportunities: Scaling Up Gender and Social Inclusion in Climate-Resilient Agriculture : An Equality and Empowerment Approach

Limiting global warming to the 2°C target in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and reaching the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, will require large-scale expansion of climate-resilient approaches in food systems. Coordinated action is needed from global to local levels, with research, policy and investment, across private, public and civil society sectors. At the same time, these approaches need to address gender equality and social inclusion. More attention needs to be given to the factors that constrain change and innovation in the poorest and most vulnerable groups. Participatory approaches that embed equality, more equal power relations and social justice into the design and practice of climate-resilient agriculture are critical

Expanding Opportunities: Scaling Up Gender and Social Inclusion in AICCRA

The framework presented here integrates CGIAR and AICCRA experience in gender and socially-inclusive approaches to reach women, youth and under-represented groups, to develop a model for scaling up climate resilient agriculture that integrates equality and empowerment

Learning and action for gender-transformative climate-smart agriculture

This paper reports on a networking meeting of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) Flagship held at the university of Canberra, Australia on 1-2 April 2019. The meeting helped to identify opportunities for gender-transformative, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) through knowledge sharing and next steps for CCAFS Phase Two. Researchers involved in gender and social inclusion working across CCAFS reviewed the existing knowledge base, noted key gaps, and began the process of identifying future research questions and themes

TH2.2: Framework for incorporating Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) elements in Climate Information Services (CIS)

This paper proposes a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Framework for incorporating Climate Information Services which is increasingly becoming important due to climate change and climate variability. Our paper understands gender as a socially constructed definition of women and men. Gender inequalities seem to be pervasive in that, even with the introduction of new agricultural and climate information technologies, the gendered fault lines still appear within the new technological settings. Such gendered technological inequalities can be traced back to as early as the 1960s, where it was clear that technological solutions are grounded within the society in which they are embedded. Unless women are intentionally included in the design and development of agricultural technologies, there is a high risk that women will not benefit from agricultural innovations meant to ameliorate the impact of climate change and climate variability. According to Conway's law, any technology reflects the values of its creator. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to understand the values of those who create technological solutions and innovations. Our proposed framework has five indicators which are namely: Gender targeting by design, Sex disaggregated data collection, analysis of sex-disaggregated data, dissemination technological options and ongoing gender monitoring, and empowerment evaluation. The five indicator domains are further complemented by their respective assumptions. The five indicator domains are applied in the context of three development interventions which are namely agricultural data hub, Climate Information Services Training, and Flood and Drought Indicators which are all being implemented in Zambia as part of the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa Project (AICCRA) Project. The framework which is being applied in Zambia, is showing the importance of incorporating gender equality and social inclusion in the design, implementation and evaluation of climate information services

Woman in agriculture, and climate risks: hotspots for development

There is rising interest among research and development practitioners to arrive at impact driven solutions in the field of gender and climate change adaptation. Climate change adaptation interventions can be better targeted by being linked with type of climatic risks experienced by women farmers, their social profile and their needs based on the role they play in agriculture. This study presents a methodology to identify hotspots where climate change adaptation and gender based interventions could be prioritized. The methodology is illustrated for India. The results suggest 36 hotspots across 10 states in India, where large number of women farmers are impacted by high levels of drought probability, excess rainfall and heat wave. The target population in these hotspots comprise 14.4% of the total women farmers in the country. A socioeconomic characterization of the hotspot population highlights barriers, such as labor, credit and market access for female cultivators and lower wage rates for female laborers in these hotspots. Based on the constraints as well as the climatic risks faced by these women in the hotspots, the potential of climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices are emphasized. Additionally, a comparison of current research being done in the field with the results of the study highlights the potential to learn from current efforts for efficient scalability of gender and climate change adaptation interventions