Framework for Gender Analysis Focusing on Agricultural Research for
Development
1
Introduction
The interactions amongst smallholder agriculture, livelihoods and gender are dynamic
and closely intertwined. Agriculture as a livelihood is simultaneously carried out as a
“way of life” within structures of gender and household organisation which are
themselves a cocktail of norms, beliefs and practices that govern individual household
members’ roles and rights in production, exchange and consumption. Gender and
household organisation are fundamental principles governing the division of labor and
determining expectations, obligations, responsibilities and entitlements of males and
females within and beyond households. Gender and household organisation for example
determine the economic and social roles played by men and women and boys and girls, of
which, in rural households, participation in agriculture is just one of the many. Gender
and household organisation also determine the entitlements and constraints in time,
mobility and resources that each experiences in performing this role (Grieco 1997).
Agricultural research for development interventions may therefore have multiple and
simultaneous effects on females, males and their households. The interventions may also
have varying appeals to females and males. An understanding of the varying effects and
appeals requires analysis of the gender, its determinants and its influence in determining
access to, and utilisation of agricultural resources. The analytic framework is indicated
overleaf.
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Ideologies
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Customary
Legal
Regime
Institutional
Informal
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Formal
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Gender
Socio-Economic
Status
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Production
Trade
Own Labour
Transfer/Inheritance
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Socio-Interactional
Informal
Agency
Formal
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AR4D Policies
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AR4D
Programmes
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AR4D Projects
Entitlements
Settings
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AR4D
Identity
Existing Agricultural
Advancement Initiatives
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Inclusion
Exclusion
Unfavourable
Inclusion
Male Resistance
Male Silencing
Informal
Formal
Agricultural Development
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Participation in AR4D
Capacities to Take Up Opportunities Available in AR4D
Undermined Capacities to Take Up Available in AR4D
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Indigenous
Government Led
Non
Governmental Led
Ideologies
In broad terms, ideology is a set of beliefs/ideas onto which actions are based. Ideologies
are also ways in which people think about the World and their ideal concept of how to
live. Ideologies are therefore material, social and moral. Ideologies knit together divisions
of labour, sexuality, affection, ideas about rights and responsibilities and ideas about
what males and females do and how they should treat one another. Ideologies are
conceived and propagated by prevailing legal and customary regimes through both
formal and informal institutions.
Institutions
Baden (2000) defines institutions as the formal and informal rules and constraints which
shape social perceptions of needs and roles while organisations administer these rules and
respond to needs. Institutions create the context in which societal structures such as
households, communities, development organizations such as those of AR4D, the state
etc do operate. Institutions further tend to socially exclude and, or unfavourably include
certain categories of people from opportunities for advancement.
Social Exclusion and Unfavourable Inclusion
Social exclusion is defined by Sen (2000) as a form of inability to do things that one has
reason to want to do while Kelles-Vitanen (1998) describes unfavourable inclusion as
forms of deeply unequal terms of social participation in social and economic spheres, for
example the labour, land, product and credit markets, agricultural training and research,
extension services, on-farm trials and field demonstrations, in value chain interventions,
in educational institutions etc.
Identities
Ideologies about rights and responsibilities of males and females and how they should
treat one another give rise to gender identity, i.e. the internalised sense of being
masculine or feminine. However, there are also other identities based on socio-economic
status such as age, birth order, marital status, level of education attained, reproductive
status, occupation etc. Due to gender identity, males and females are socialized into
different social beings. They are also accorded different entitlements right from birth.
Typically, females have lesser social-interactional, trade-based, production-based, ownlabour and inheritance/transfer entitlements. Due to lesser entitlements, their agency, i.e.,
the ability to undertake meaningful action is constrained. For they are socially excluded
and/or unfavourably included in the development process. This is what account for
females’ vulnerability relative to males’. Combined or individually, institutions and
gender identity do determine the entitlements of males and females in society.
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Entitlements
Sen (1981) defined entitlements as sets of alternative commodity/service bundles that a
person can command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that s/he
faces. A person’s “entitlement set” is the full range of goods and services that s/he can
acquire by converting his/her “endowments” through “entitlement mappings”.
Endowments are those assets, resources, including labour power that somebody already
commands or has access to while entitlements are the assets that somebody can within
certain contexts produce under circumstances determined by prevailing legal and
customary regimes. Through the application of endowments, entitlements are created or
transferred.
Entitlement sets typically comprise any of, all or a combination of the following:

social-interactional entitlements in form of support, recognition, encouragement,
expectations etc held of someone by significant others, for example parents,
teachers, spouses, employers, extension workers, government, development
organisations, communities etc all of which foster confidence, optimism, control
over one’s own life and the power to make rational choices.

production-based entitlements whereby one is entitled to own what one gets by
organising production (for instance of food) using resources one owns for
example land, or resources hired/rented from willing parties under agreed
conditions of exchange;

own-labour based entitlements whereby one is entitled to one's own labour power,
and thus to the trade-based and production-based entitlements arising from one's
labour power;

inheritance and transfer entitlements whereby one is entitled to own what is
willingly bequeathed to him/her by another who legitimately owns it; and,

trade-based entitlements whereby one is entitled to own what one obtains by
trading something that one owns with a willing party, for example selling one’s
non food agricultural produce to purchase food;
Entitlements further define the relationships between people and the
commodities/services which they need to acquire (or to have access to) in order to be able
to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives. In entitlement analysis, a person's command over
commodities is said to depend first on the person's identity (gender, socio-economic
status), second, the person’s position in society (what their occupation or class is, what
they produce, where they live, how much land they own, what skills they possess, what
authority they command etc,) and third, on the rules which legitimise claims over
commodities/services. Since a person's entitlement depends partially on their identity and
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position in society, entitlement analysis introduces a range of social, economic, cultural,
and political factors that determine entitlements, including entitlements to socioeconomic transformation.
According to Sen (1981), a person who has land, labour power and other resources which
together make up his/her endowments can produce a bundle of food that will be his/hers.
Or by selling labour, s/he can get a wage and with that buy commodities, including food.
Alternatively, s/he can grow cash crops and trade them for food and other commodities.
The combined sets of all such available commodity bundles in a given economic situation
are the exchange entitlement of his/her endowment. However, entitlement to such
resources is governed by rules and norms that are distinguished and structured by gender,
age, marital status and other axes of socio-economic inclusion and exclusion. Gasper
(1993) concludes that that beyond legal/customary rights, effective access to resources
within institutions typically depends not only on formal and informal rules but also on
particular relationships with sources of authority and influence. In essence, entitlements
are conferred through social inclusion, exclusion and unfavourable inclusion that allow
and/or prevent certain categories in society from effectively participating in development
processes.
Due to gender identity, males and females are socialized into different social beings with
differing perceptions and experiences of reality, perceived capabilities and possibilities,
levels of optimism and ambitions in life. They are also accorded different entitlements
right from birth. Typically, females have lesser social-interactional, trade-based,
production-based, own-labour and inheritance and transfer entitlements. Due to lesser
entitlements, their agency, i.e., the ability to undertake meaningful action is constrained.
For they are socially excluded and/or unfavourably included in the development process.
Even where they are included, they face male resistance and silencing. This is what
accounts for females’ lesser participation in development in general and higher levels of
poverty compared to males.
Agency
Entitlements further facilitate active agency. That is why some continents, countries,
communities, groups, households and individuals have capacity for socio-economic
transformation while others do not. Similarly, some communities, groups, households and
individuals do utilise external (government and non governmental) programmes aimed at
promoting socio-economic transformation while others do not. For example, in Uganda,
Agricultural Advisory Services are ostensibly free but are mostly utilized by males
implying that males are more entitled to these programmes than females. Further, it is the
non poor males who take up the programmes more compared to their poorer counterparts.
This is because the design of these programmes unwittingly excludes and/or
unfavourably includes females and poorer males. Implicitly, due to gender identity,
females may have lesser entitlements for socio-economic transformation on their own
and may have lesser incentives to effectively utilize external assistance unless the
obstacles posed by gendered entitlements are addressed. This also applies to the services
and products offered by the AR4D.
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Relevance of the Analytic Framework to AR4D
In the context of the AR4D, this analytic framework is of considerable significance in
contributing to addressing the constraints posed by gender and social status identities to
agricultural transformation and ultimately, foster development. For the framework
transcends the current “business as usual” analysis of gender in distributional terms;
females’ lack of resources, females’ under representation in decision making and
governance etc as if the rural males lead qualitatively better lives. It further transcends
the traditional analysis of gender in terms of women’s inordinate roles, responsibilities
and workloads, little control of, and access to resources and existing power relations that
prohibit participation and benefit. For the distributional analytic perspectives do not
explain is why females lack resources and are under represented. Neither do the
traditional analyses explain why women bear inordinate roles, responsibilities and
workloads.
As a point of departure, this analytic framework traces the roots of gender inequalities
and subsequent lesser participation of females in agricultural development to relational
features described by Room (1999) as inadequate social participation; lack of social
integration; and, lack of power in deprivation of capability and experience of poverty.
Gender is a relational subject in that compared to males, there is inadequate social
participation of females in the development process, females are less socially integrated
in society and have less power all of which lead to deprivation of their capability and
subsequently, poverty. Since poor men do bear relational features similar to those of
females, their masculine gender identity notwithstanding, for women and poor men, the
sense of powerlessness and exclusion is a product not just of their gender subordination
but also of interlocking forms of exclusion simultaneously linked to their socio-economic
status.
Relational analysis of gender therefore questions the tendency within current gender
equality theories and practices that assumes that promotion of the participation of both
men and women revolves around similar mechanisms which automatically promote
women’s and poorer men’s interests. This is misleading because the assumption does not
recognize the obstacles posed by the gendered nature of institutions within which
policies, programmes and projects are designed and implemented and within which the
targeted men and women do operate. For as earlier mentioned, institutions create the
contexts in which governmental and non governmental organizations such as those
conducting AR4D do operate. And institutions tend to socially exclude and, or
unfavourably include certain categories of people from opportunities for advancement.
The assumption is further misleading because it does not recognize the obstacles paused
by gendered entitlements requisite for activating agency of actors in development.
Custom and legal regimes disentitle females or offer them much fewer entitlements
compared to males. Yet development theory and practice expects females to operate as
effectively as males in environments where females are disadvantaged with respect to
entitlements. No wonder then that most WID and GAD efforts have not bore the
“expected” outcomes.
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Furthermore, assumptions about promotion of the participation of both men and women
within similar mechanisms are problematic because they do not take into account
asymmetries in agency of males and females. In the first case, agency or the ability to
undertake meaningful action is determined by entitlements. Since women and poor males
are less entitled, their agency is also less active. This is why females and poor males may
not even utilize resources availed to them. Females’ and poorer males’ less active agency
is not only influenced by their exclusion and unfavourable inclusion with regard to
entitlements but also by male silencing and resistance. This silencing and resistance
tends to limit females’ and poor males’ voice, which is again less understood and
articulated by current development theory and voice. Limitations in females’ and poor
males’ voice ultimately evolve local sub-cultures within groups which undermine their
capacities take up opportunities for improving their socio-economic wellbeing. It is these
sub cultures that lead to labelling some individuals and groups as “poor” and/or “lazy”
because they not only lack resources but because they may also not even access and
effectively utilize resources targeted towards them (Razavi and Miller 1995).
Yet, due to the deep institutionalization of forms of social exclusion and unfavourable
inclusion in society, governmental and non governmental (including AR4D) policies,
programmes and projects little appreciate the forms of social exclusion and unfavourable
inclusion that prevent certain categories of people from effectively participating in
development processes (Manyire 2011). For while some AR4D policies, programmes and
projects may genuinely aim at achieving participation of both males and females so that
women and men benefit equally and gender inequality is not perpetuated, it is not clear
how participation of poor men and women is expected to lead to articulation of their
interests in ways which can influence institutional rules and practices (effectiveness) and
consequently lead to making of decisions about resource use that lead to socio-economic
transformation in the material sense (impact).
It is these gendered exclusions and unfavourable inclusions which are institutionalized
within formal and informal settings within organisations and communities/households,
respectively, that this analytic framework seeks to address.
Application of the Framework to AR4D
Women and men continually modify their agricultural practices according to their
specific entitlements with respect to needs, knowledge and access to resources. However,
due to lesser socio-interactional entitlements, the knowledge held by women is not as
recorded as that held by males. Local knowledge about less obvious resources such as
small crops, forest food and medicinal plants though often held mostly by women is also
less acknowledged. In pastoral communities, power and authority exercised by women
especially in ritual and production of material culture is also less acknowledged by
scholars and pastoralist men. Simultaneously, development practice often focuses on
“men’s” crops and livestock. Even farmer field schools and extension services tend to be
tailored towards males to the detriment of females’ rights to timely information,
knowledge, skills, resources and participation in decision-making. All these combined
undermine females’ and poor males’ capacities to take up external opportunities for
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agricultural development. There is therefore need for building on, and strengthening
women’s experiences, knowledge and coping capacities in AR4D policies and ensuring
that women’s needs are considered in livelihoods strategies.
Females again have fewer production based entitlements including inequitable access to
credit, inputs such as improved seed varieties, as well as labour-saving technologies. If
the production entitlement limitations are not addressed, even the general acceptance
within AR4D discourses of the need for innovations and management practices that foster
increased production and productivity may not translate into adoption of the innovations
by females. It is therefore evident that entitlement of women to enable them acquire,
invest in and deploy technologies that contribute to agricultural development is crucial.
Paradoxically, new, higher yielding crop/livestock varieties, crop/livestock mixtures or
agricultural techniques often require higher levels of labor, fertilizer, manure, capital or
other inputs but are rarely gender or wealth neutral because of the differential access to
labor, manure or capital inputs. In addition, females have lesser trade based entitlements,
hence fewer sources of alternative income. In many African communities, cash income
from crops and livestock is managed primarily by men in their roles as heads of
households. This is the reason females are often culturally proscribed to cultivate lowreturn crops for home consumption. In Uganda, for example, plots owned by men are
more likely to be planted with banana, maize, and coffee whereas plots owned by women
are more likely to be planted with the lower-value sweet potato, sorghum, beans and
peas. Therefore, although biotechnology or other agronomic crop breeding research can
have important livelihoods benefits, decisions of what crops to focus on and their varietal
characteristics should include women farmers and their needs and preferences.
There are other agricultural practices that do not require large capital inputs, but do have
high labor demands. Yet women have fewer labour based entitlements on account of their
inordinately heavy workloads. The practices include changed planting dates on account
of climate change, agro-diversity and soil and water conservation practices such as
conservation tillage, mulching, shading, terracing and agro-forestry, most of which are
activities normally in men’s domain (e.g., tree planting). Thus, these activities offer
females fewer incentives to participate in them. Hence, supporting communal approaches
such as women‘s groups may help. A mixed crop-tree-livestock system is an old
approach African smallholder agriculture. Diversification of production activities can
promote synergies (e.g., fodder crops can improve the soil), reduce pests and disease and
improve income stream, nutrition and food security. These are systems where women
often have clear rights and responsibilities. However it is difficult to conduct traditional
agricultural research to improve these mixed systems; they require high levels of labor
compared to the income generated, and their technologies are difficult to scale up.
Agricultural research in these systems that works with women and includes indigenous
knowledge has been shown to do well (Snapp and Pound 2008).
Conclusions
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Cited References
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and Change, 24, pp. 679–718.
Grieco, M (1997) "Beyond the Policy Table: Gender, Agriculture and the African Rural
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Kalles–Vittanen, A (1998) Discussant’s Commentary: Asian Development Bank Seminar on
Inclusion or Exclusion: Social Development Challenges for Asia and Europe, Geneva, 27
April
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Development and Its Contribution to Feeding Our region in the Twenty First Century” A
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Entebbe, Uganda
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Development Discourse” Occassional Paper no. 1, Geneva, UNRISD
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International Journal of Social Welfare, 8, 166-174
Sen, A (1981) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation,
Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Sen, A (2000) “Social Exclusion: Concept, Application and Scrutiny” Social Development
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Snapp, S and Pound, B (2008) Agricultural Systems: Agroecology and Rural Innovation
for Development, Boston, Elsevier/Academic Press.
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