Alemu, Biruk

Desta, Hiwot

Kinati, Wole

Mulema, Annet A.

Wieland, Barbara

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Introduction• Livestock are  important for small holders’ livelihood Ethiopia.• Sheep and goats are considered as  key assets for small holders given their role for household economics and their cultural value.• Household members have different roles and responsibilities, access to and control over of resources, and thus different needs that may be regulated by gender norms. The aim of the study is to examined the gendered preferences of livestock species, their importance and the different gender roles in small ruminant production.MethodsGender disaggregated data were collected from four regions of Ethiopia:• Focus group discussions were conducted: 23 each with men, women, youth male and youth female groups in total of 92. • Household survey involving 646 interviewees in  429 households: 216 men and 125 women in male headed household and 88 women in female headed household. • Participatory tools, such as simple ranking and proportional piling were used to assess importance of livestock species. PicturesConclusionThe study highlights on:• The importance of livestock, and the preference of livestock species in the different gender groups. • Women’s involvement in the small ruminant key husbandry practices and management but their contribution is under recognized. • The study shade light on the presence of potential gender inequalities in terms of production, decision making and control over of income from small ruminants. ResultsImportance of livestock• Sheep were considered the most important livestock species- ‘Sheep are fast growing cabbage in the homestead’ with women scoring higher, closely followed by cattle.• Men allocating higher scores for cattle- ‘cattle are bank for owners ’. • Small ruminants were considered multi-functional: meat and milk, nutritional value for children and/or medicinal use of meat and milk, disease and drought resistance, and fast growth and high reproduction rates- “Goats are cattle gifted for the poor”. • In addition poultry production was important for meat and egg and generating additional income for women. • Transporting goods and people, providing milk are mentioned as camels importance. Use of equine as pack animal, ploughing and compacting of land and threshing of crops.Gendered priority livestock species and rolesin small ruminant productionThis document is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.October, 2017Gender roles and decision making• In small ruminant production, women are involved most in cleaning, feeding, watering, and also equally involved in caring for sick animals with men. • Whereas men are mostly involved in activities related to marketing, breeding, veterinary inputs and slaughtering.• Despite contributing as much as men, women have less control over income generated from small ruminants. • Decision related to production, men have control apart from decisions related to treatment of sick animals. • Decisions related to slaughtering, women jointly with men decide on which animal to slaughter.Hiwot Desta1 , Wole Kinati2, Biruk Alemu1, Annet Mulema1, Barbara Wieland11International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and 2 The International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)ILRI thanks all donors that globally support their work through their contributions to the CGIAR systemHiwot Destah.desta@cgiar.org ● Box 5689 Addis Ababa  Ethiopia  ● +251 116 17 22 23 Addis Ababa  Ethiopia  ● ilri.org   This project was funded by the CRP Livestock and IFAD

Gendered priority livestock species and roles in small ruminant production

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