Local organisation and gender in water management: a case study from the Kenya Highlands

Were, Elizabeth; Roy, Jessica; Swallow, Brent

doi:10.1002/jid.1428

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Therefore, encouraging spousal comembership and joint land ownership may be promising strategies for cooperatives to strengthen collective marketing. This resonates with the claims of earlier studies finding that the management of natural resources is more effective when both sexes are actively involved in community groups (Penrose-Buckley 2007;Parvin Sultana and Paul Thompson 2008;Elizabeth Were, Jessica Roy, and Brent Swallow 2008).…”

Section: What Determines Women's Cooperative Membership?supporting

confidence: 83%

What Determines Women's Participation in Collective Action? Evidence from a Western Ugandan Coffee Cooperative

Selhausen

2015

Feminist Economics

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Women smallholders face greater constraints than men in accessing capital and commodity markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Collective action has been promoted to remedy those disadvantages. Using survey data of 421 women members and 210 nonmembers of a coffee producer cooperative in Western Uganda, this study investigates the determinants of women's participation in cooperatives and women's intensity of participation. The results highlight the importance of access to and control over land for women to join the cooperative in the first place. Participation intensity is measured through women's participation in collective coffee marketing and share capital contributions. It is found that duration of membership, access to extension services, more equal intrahousehold power relations, and joint land ownership positively influence women's ability to commit to collective action. These findings demonstrate the embeddedness of collective action in gender relations and the positive value of women's active participation for agricultural-marketing cooperatives.

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Section: What Determines Women's Cooperative Membership?supporting

confidence: 83%

What Determines Women's Participation in Collective Action? Evidence from a Western Ugandan Coffee Cooperative

Selhausen

2015

Feminist Economics

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“…This implies that collective action groups with different gender compositions behave differently: women-only groups are strong on participatory practices, men-only on setting rules, but that it is only mixed groups that truly prompt community-wide actions, increasing the effectiveness of collective action (cf. Were et al, 2008 ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

The nexus between gender, collective action for public goods and agriculture: evidence from Malawi

McCarthy

Kilic

2015

Agricultural Economics

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Across the developing world, public goods exert significant impacts on the local rural economy in general and agricultural productivity and welfare outcomes in particular. Economic and social-cultural heterogeneity have, however, long been documented as detrimental to collective capacity to provide public goods. In particular, women are often underrepresented in local leadership and decision-making processes, as are young adults and minority ethnic groups. While democratic principles dictate that broad civic engagement by women and other groups could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local governance and increase public goods provision, the empirical evidence on these hypotheses is scant. This article develops a theoretical model highlighting the complexity of constructing a "fair" schedule of individual contributions, given heterogeneity in costs and benefits that accrue to people depending, for instance, on their gender, age, ethnicity, and education. The model demonstrates that representative leadership and broad participation in community organizations can mitigate the negative impacts of heterogeneity on collective capacity to provide public goods. Nationally representative household survey data from Malawi, combined with geospatial and administrative information, are used to test this hypothesis and to estimate the relationship between collective capacity for public good provision and community median estimates of maize yields and household consumption expenditures per capita. The analysis shows that similarities between the leadership and the general population in terms of gender and age, and active participation by women and young adult in community groups, alleviate the negative effects of heterogeneity and increase collective capacity, which in turn improves agriculture productivity and welfare.JEL classifications: C26, D71, H41, O13, Q12

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“…In this sense, collective action to participate in cash crop production may be empowering, but the association between the increased autonomy in the household and the women's overall well‐being is uncertain. Much of the literature on collective action in rural communities has focused on its potential in regulating rights to and responsibilities relating to common property resources and public services and access to benefits largely realized through such collective rather than individual action (Meinzen‐Dick et al ; Were, Roy, and Swallow ). Collective action has increasingly become conceptualized in relation to marginalization, rather than simply as structures or processes (Were et al ).…”

Section: Gender and Patriarchy Collective Action And Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Inequality, Processes of Adaptation, and Female Local Initiatives in Cash Crop Production in Northern Tanzania

2016

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This article contributes to development research, as well as research studying inequality in agricultural systems. We use empirical data from an ethnographic study in the village of Mamba, in northern Tanzania (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009). This study analyzes the question of changing gender relations and the patriarchal constraints to collective action under market liberalization of cash crops. Our findings demonstrate that the shift to a market economy has influenced the nature of production relations, deepening inequalities in gender relations and the position of women. However, some women circumvent their disadvantaged situations through their association with various types of collective action groups or networks. In order to investigate the different impacts on women's lives, we analyze women's interest and motivations for these collective actions. We also identify the processes of adaptation to the new production relations through the coffee trade network and tomato cultivation groups, two local initiatives. We analyze the differences between these two forms of collective action and theorize on their different impacts on women's empowerment.

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Local organisation and gender in water management: a case study from the Kenya Highlands

Cited by 25 publications

References 7 publications

What Determines Women's Participation in Collective Action? Evidence from a Western Ugandan Coffee Cooperative

What Determines Women's Participation in Collective Action? Evidence from a Western Ugandan Coffee Cooperative

The nexus between gender, collective action for public goods and agriculture: evidence from Malawi

Gender Inequality, Processes of Adaptation, and Female Local Initiatives in Cash Crop Production in Northern Tanzania

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