New from IFPRI on gender

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)

Indira Yerramareddy — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:03:44 -0400

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a new survey-based index designed to measure the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector in an effort to identify ways to overcome those obstacles and constraints (Alkire et al. 2012). This technical report, prepared by researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), presents the WEAI, computed for the Feed the Future zone as well as rural Bangladesh as a whole.

Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index

PDF file:

weaitr.pdf(1.3MB)

WEAI Data Goes Public

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:22:23 -0400

Originally posted by Emily Hogue, Team Leader for Monitoring and Evaluation, Bureau for Food Security USAID, on the Feed the Future Blog

“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Index”

Ruth Meinzen-Dick — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:21:42 -0400

*Last year, IFPRI researchers, in partnership with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), developed the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), a tool designed to monitor women’s empowerment and inclusion in agriculture. The index is being used by USAID in its countries focused on in its Feed the Future hunger and poverty reduction program.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Index

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:04:58 -0400

Reflections on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)

Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index

PDF file:

weai_reflections_2013.pdf(272KB)

Data needs for gender analysis in agriculture

Indira Yerramareddy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:48:40 -0400

To support gender analysis in agriculture, household surveys should be better designed to capture gender-specific control and ownership of agricultural resources such as male-owned, female-owned, and jointly owned assets. This paper offers guidelines on how to improve data collection efforts to ensure that women farmers are interviewed and that their voices are heard. Researchers need to clarify who should be interviewed, how to structure the interview, and how to identify which people are involved in various activities, as owners, managers, workers, and decisionmakers.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Putting gender on the map

Do household definitions matter in survey design?

PDF file:

ifpridp01261.pdf(364.7KB)

The impact of irrigation on nutrition, health, and gender

Indira Yerramareddy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:31:10 -0400

Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) is still largely rainfed. SSA also exhibits the lowest crop yields for major staples in the world, largely due to low use of irrigation and fertilizer. Rainfed agriculture poses growing production risks with increased climate variability and change. At the same time, smallholder irrigation in the region developed rapidly over the past decade, albeit starting from very low levels.

Reshaping agriculture for nutrition and health

Malaria and agriculture

PDF file:

ifpridp01259.pdf(1.1MB)

Walk the Talk: Taking Action to Fight Hunger

admin — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:51:11 -0400

IFPRI’s 2012 Global Food Policy Report reviews food policy developments and trends with chapter-by-chapter discussions of major food policy developments, high-quality research, and perspectives of farmers from around the world. It also charts the path forward with a call to action on gender rights, employment in agriculture for youth in Africa, a needed evolution of US and EU support for their farmers, and regional policy reforms to promote food and nutrition security.

Related Publications:

2012 Global Food Policy Report

2012 Global Food Policy Report: Overview

2012 Global Food Policy Report

admin — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:27:59 -0400

Download full report (PDF 5.0M)

IFPRI's flagship report examines the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2012. By putting into perspective the year's food policy successes and disappointments, it suggests how to move forward those policies that improve the food situation for the poor.

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* Read online
* Overview booklet

2012 Global Food Policy Report: Overview

PDF file:

gfpr2012.pdf(5.1MB)

Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:28:23 -0400

By Emily Hogue, Team Leader for Monitoring and Evaluation, Bureau for Food Security, USAID. Originally posted in Feed the Future Blog

Last March, Feed the Future launched a tool to measure women’s empowerment in agriculture—the first of its kind.

Double burden: Rural Pakistani women

Madeeha Hameed — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:12:55 -0400

From former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to student activist Malala Yousufzai, Pakistani women from all backgrounds and age groups have been transforming the discourse of gender roles in Pakistani society.

And they are making a difference: in the midst of a changing political, social, and economic environment, political victories for women have been few but significant, including an Anti-Sexual Harassment Act, the creation of the National Commission on Status of Women, and a bill protecting women against domestic violence.

International Women’s Day

Marcia MacNeil — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:35:41 -0400

At IFPRI, every day is women’s day, as improving women’s lives is one of the most effective ways to reduce hunger.

Building on gender policy reforms in Ethiopia

Marcia MacNeil — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:13:25 -0400

Ethiopians have a saying: “Little by little, the egg begins to walk.” This is certainly true of step-by-step progress towards gender equality on the African continent. Sometimes, however, that little egg gets a boost when seemingly unrelated policy reforms act together to reinforce and strengthen their impact on women’s empowerment.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Indira Yerramareddy — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:41:00 -0400

This discussion paper was also published by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) as Working Paper 58.

Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Promising approaches to address the needs of poor female farmers

Gender and collective action

A review of empirical evidence on gender differences in nonland agricultural inputs, technology, and services

PDF file:

ifpridp01240.pdf(2.2MB)

Policy reform toward gender equality in Ethiopia

Indira Yerramareddy — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:32:46 -0400

There is growing interest in the role of policy reforms to promote gender equality and empower women, two key objectives of development policy. From a policy perspective, it would be ideal for reforms undertaken in different policy areas to be consistent, so that they reinforce each other in improving gender equity.

Gender, assets, and agricultural development programs

Gendered impacts of the 2007–08 food price crisis

Who owns the land?

Policy reform toward gender equality in Ethiopia

PDF file:

ifpridp01226.pdf(1.3MB)

International Day of the Girl

Xinyuan Shang — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:50:48 -0400

October 11, 2012 is the United Nation’s International Day of the Girl, dedicated to girls around the world because they suffer most from poverty, poor health, discrimination, and violence.

Fellowships on Gender and Agriculture Awarded

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:58:21 -0400

IFPRI and its partners are pleased to announce that Jessica Ham (University of Georgia), Brooke Krause (University of Minnesota), Christopher Manyamba (University of Pretoria), and Greg Seymour (American University) have been awarded a Ph.D. dissertation research fellowships on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI).

Gender assessment of the agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Indira Yerramareddy — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:02:02 -0400

Based on the 2011 Global Hunger Index, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the most severe level of hunger and malnutrition. There is growing recognition that development in the agriculture sector and increasing productivity will be critical to reverse this trend. A growing set of literature looks at gender disparity in access to critical inputs, knowledge and markets, which have been shown to contribute to low productivity and nutrition insecurity.

Resource-rich yet malnourished

Institutional and capacity challenges in agricultural policy process

PDF file:

ifpridp01201.pdf(1.1MB)

WEAI Case Study Profile: Harriet, Uganda

admin — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 17:59:00 -0400

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index is an innovative tool composed of two sub-indexes: one measures how empowered women are within five domains, and the other measures gender parity in empowerment within the household.

This case study profiles Harriet, a 30-year-old mother of six in Uganda.

Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index

WEAI Case Study Profile: Lilian, Uganda

WEAI Case Study Profile: Peace, Uganda

WEAI Case Study Profile: Florence, Uganda

PDF file:

weai_case_uganda4.pdf(572.8KB)