CARE’s Women’s Empowerment Framework
Agency: a woman’s own aspirations and capabilities to
take action
Structure: the environment (social norms, institutions,
policies) that surrounds and conditions women’s choices
Relations: the relationships, coalitions, mutual support
through which a woman negotiates her path to expand
agency or alter structures
Agency
WE
Framework
Relations
Structure
CARE’S WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT FRAMEWORK:
APPLICATION TO AGRICULTURE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Positive image of women as farmers, workers or entrepreneurs
Practical knowledge of law and self confidence to claim rights
Access to and use of information and skills to improve productivity and income
Equitable division of labor/time
Increased involvement in decision making at HH level
Equitable control over productive assets and use of income
Increased food and nutrition security
Agency
Relations
Greater
gender equity,
productivity, in
sustainable
agriculture,
leading to
empowerment
1. Ability to organize, lead and influence
2. Freedom to form coalitions and jointly
claim rights and hold duty bearers
accountable
3. Ability to engage male groups as change
and support agents
4. Change in institutional and individual
attitude, behaviors toward women
Structure
1. Existence of gender equitable
land/property and other natural resource
laws.
2. Existence of legal support structures for
female claimants
3. Equitable access to market structure and
investment for value creation
4. Increased State/local authorities budget
allocation to women issues in agriculture
5. Attention to gender equity by institutional
system
CARE International Food Security Strategy
Sust. Ag.
Prod & mkts
Financial
Services
Social
Protection
Hum.
Assistance
Nutrition
Advocacy and Campaigning
Key Points from January 2010 meeting:
•Focus on (poor) women and children (and on building women’s assets and
engagement in decision making)
•Multi-sectoral approaches that address underlying causes of poverty
•Five Strategic Objectives (likely)
•Analysis of drivers and finding solutions/ leverage points
•Protecting and promoting resilient livelihoods
•Empowering women to engage in initiatives to reduce food insecurity
•Collaboration, capacity enhancement, monitoring of fulfillment of the right
to food
•Accountability of duty bearers to fulfill right to food for poorest women
Messages from Latin America
•Make sure we integrate the various strategies to make them
useful to country offices
•Our ANR work should be more than an end in itself – it
should also be the means for more significant change
(potential to shift power relations)
•Move beyond activities that generate income to those that
contribute to broader social change
•Build a strategy with strong positions and principles that we
build in our work. Do not try to dictate globally too much
detail – contexts are very different, and evolving
Messages from Latin America - 2
•Latin America has a different context – small territory, fewer
people. Our solutions are different.
•Do not forget to discuss the issue of child labor/ child work.
•We love you
•In Latin America, “Women Rule!”
•You are lucky you don’t have Marcos! (just kidding)
Messages from Latin America – 3
Reflections from Gianluca
Market Engagement, Agriculture, Food Security and Climate
Change strategies should be highly integrated among each
other, as most of the projects actually contain more than one
of these themes
Integrating women in VCs can be achieved through
integrating women in agriculture activities, wherever
possible – work with the whole family rather than with
women only
Sometimes a difficult balance between Market Engagement
and Food Security (or even Food Sovereignty) – need to
take all elements into account when working with very
vulnerable populations.
Messages from Latin America – 4
Reflections from Gianluca
If there is an imbalance toward markets, market fluctuations
can put food security at risk (especially when targeting
international markets), unless we have a proper
diversification strategy or food security strategy. E.g. from
Wal-Mart project in Ancash - people feel uncomfortable
about targeting international markets without a proper FS
or risk mitigation strategy in place, as they have already
had negative experiences with artichokes export during
the recent economic downturn
While selecting VCs, it would be good to have clear criteria
about the positive or negative energy balance or carbon
footprint of each value chain, in order to make choices as
coherent as possible with our CC strategy as well.
Messages from Latin America – 5
Reflections from Gianluca
Watersheds management and CC adaptation should be an
integral part of VCs initiatives, as water scarcity is already
affecting both the Andean region and Central America,
and climate change might intensify the issue.
The region has a strong preference around working with
VCs mainly involving small producers, than in VCs
involving large producers with an employment creation
effect. There is a strong consideration of the social and
economic empowerment effect of vulnerable communities
(especially of women) deriving from the work with small
producers.
Messages from Latin America – 6
Reflections from Gianluca
Latin America has huge potential in terms of very specific /
unique VCs linked to the Andes or to the rainforest, and
organic production potential should be protected against
GMOs wherever possible, even if the priority might be
different in other regions.
Very serious consideration should be given to the issue of
child labour in the VCs that we are supporting.