Realizing Inclusive SAI: contextualizing indicators to better evaluate gender and intergenerational inequity in SAI processes and outcomes – cases from Southern and Western Africa

Abstract

Despite increasing sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) investments, indicators for detecting gender and intergenerational inequities in SAI costs and benefits sharing often remain overgeneralized, theoretical, or locally irrelevant. We examine the relative value of, and how to, customize standard SAI indicators to detect such inequities in specific socio-cultural contexts to enhance data collection for evidence-based decision making in fostering gender/youth inclusive SAI. Using focus-group discussions and key informant interviews among farmers and diverse government, NGO, private sector, and academic stakeholders in two districts in Malawi and three in Ghana, we assess the perceived roles, differentiated needs/ priorities of men, women and youth, and the sharing of SAI burdens and benefits within farming households. We investigate what context-appropriate questions to ask, to whom, and how, to collect reliable information on indicators of SAIinvestment inequities. Results illuminate context-specific, gendered and intergenerational factors shaping access to and ownership of productive resources, household decision making, SAI participation, and appropriateness of selected indicators. Combining farmers' and local field-expert' perspectives offers practical insights for customizing inequity indicators. Findings highlight advantages of local contextualization of SAI indicators, including insights on appropriate data-collection approaches that challenge orthodox survey/quantitative methods for detecting and assessing gender/age inequities to foster inclusive SAI.

Gender- and youth-sensitive data collection tools to support decision making for inclusive sustainable agricultural intensification

“…The testing of these tools demonstrates the feasibility of their use by a wide range of actors, including small NGOs, large businesses, government officers and community-based organizations. Excellent implementation of the tool in the field is only one component of the process that starts with decision makers choosing the most appropriate tool and contextualizing indicators for local conditions (Zulu et al, 2020) to use with the tools. That process culminates with using the data from the tools to inform specific projects and to improve interventions.…”

“…However, asking respondents to recall an entire farming season raises concerns about the accuracy of recall. Stakeholders in Malawi cautioned that questions should be asked as soon after harvest as possible (Zulu et al, 2020). Our experience is that reasonable estimates are possible by walking with farmers to particular fields and asking them to recall how many days (or portions of days) they spent doing major tasks in that place over the past growing season (noting how many people, by gender and age).…”

Lessons on enabling African smallholder farmers, especially women and youth, to benefit from sustainable agricultural intensification

“…from SAI, and the perceptions of women, youth and elderly regarding the restrictions and enablers of their participation in the transition towards agricultural intensification (Fischer et al, 2020;Lindjö et al, 2020;Zulu et al, 2020). Lindjö et al (2020) observed that young and productive farmers were often lacking access to land, whereas elderly farmers withholding this land were increasingly unable to use this resource productively.…”

“…Supporting decision making on what works and does not work to enable women and youth participation depends on appropriate metrics and indicators that reflect these stakeholders' situations (Grabowski et al, 2020;Zulu et al, 2020). To mitigate potential biases, decision makers must be able to assess if and how access to agricultural resources is differentiated by gender or age, particularly in the context of agricultural changes such as intensification.…”

“…Grabowski et al (2020) present a tool-guided approach for decision makers, whereby increased stakeholder collaboration and iterative cycles of action and learning should lead to more equitable sharing of responsibilities and benefits from investments in SAI. While Zulu et al (2020) present the advantages of locally contextualized indicators including more appropriate data collection methods, combining perspectives of farmers and field-experts, for detecting and assessing gender and generational inequities in SAI. This has the advantage of ensuring responsive indicators of local gender and generational equities, but challenges for decision makers' capacity as to how to make such adjustments.…”