access to services, including credit. Indonesia’s experience has been especiallypositive.The features that characterize rural women’s work— labour intensity, local materials and local markets — also constrain productdiversification and market expansion. Other constraints include lack of field-testedappropriate technology, interference by men in the use of capital reserves, lack ofinfrastructure and transportation, lack of managerial skills, direct and indirectcompetition with formal enterprises and lack of access to credit and financialservices. IFAD has overcome these obstacles in three ways: principally through itsloan projects, through technical assistance grants, and by helping focus theattention of national governments, donors and NGOs on improving existing activitiesand creating new opportunities.

Lack of land for farming is perhaps theseverest constraint faced by the ruralpoor, and one that affects more womenthan men. In rural areas, there arevery few employment opportunities;moreover, work as casual and seasonallabourers in agriculture orconstruction may not be an option forwomen. For those with little or no land,some of IFAD’s projects have providedstrong support for non-farmingactivities, such as marketing, processing,and other microenterprises 1 .Self-employment 2 in small-scalebusinesses presents a constructiveoption for income generation. In manydeveloping countries, a high percentageof small-scale businesses that cater tolocal needs are controlled or owned bywomen. In Latin America, women ownbetween one-third and one-half of allsmall rural enterprises. Women’senterprises tend to be relatively small,have informal structures, flexibility,low capital needs, modest educationalrequirements, high labour intensity,and depend on local raw materials. They

are also characterized by theirdependence on family labour and limitedtechnical and managerial skills.Commonly, these enterprises are notregistered, maintain no businessrecords and do not have access to creditfrom formal credit institutions. Rural women are active participants inretail trade and marketing, particularlywhere trade is traditional and not highlycommercialized. In many parts of Asia,women market foods such as vegetables;in West Africa, they distribute mostmajor commodities; and in theCaribbean, women account for nearlyall local marketing. Through theirmarketing efforts, women providevaluable links among farmers,intermediaries and consumers. Pettytrade, often thought of in the past asnon-productive, in fact serves tostimulate the production and consumptionlinkages in the local economy.IFAD has successfully facilitated a varietyof microenterprise developments amongthe rural poor by helping both men andwomen form groups in order to gain

WOMEN AND SMALL BUSINESS (microenterprise)

The Income-Generating Project for Marginal Farmers and Landless

1

1Microenterprise may bedefined as businessesoperated by fewer thanten employees, which areowned and operated bythe poor, irrespective oftheir product or service.

2This section relies heavily

on Women in a ChangingGlobal Environment, 1995.United Nations, New York,Chapter II, Section D. towhich IFAD contributed.

1

participatory planning exercise that involved 11 prospective provinces and a large number of two to three-dayworkshops. In addition, the new project, as appraised in 1997, will “improve targeting of women's self-help groups,by increasing the number of women involved in project management and implementation, especially as fieldextension workers, and by sensitizing managers and implementors to gender issues.”A particularly successful approach has been implemented in the DominicanRepublic, where a project created new income-earning opportunities for ruralwomen by developing organizations with both social and economic functions. Bydiversifying and intensifying agricultural production, enlarging the agriculturalarea, expanding marketing and improving technology, the project enabled womento add value to their products.While credit is a problem for all small businesses, the lack of access to credit andfinancial services is particularly acute for women. In some countries, bankinglaws contain discriminatory provisions. Inheritance laws, property rights andmatrimonial property rules can also work against women. Undercapitalized fromthe outset, women’s microenterprises tend to start smaller and grow more slowly.Women in developing countries must often rely on informal financing sources thatdemand high interest. IFAD’s projects have been innovative and successful inproviding women with microfinance for microenterprises, and have initiated theprocess of linking these enterprises with the formal commercial financial sector.Newly designed and approved projects in The Philippines (Rural Micro-Enterprise Finance Project), Bangladesh (Employment-Generation Project for theRural Poor), Colombia (Rural Micro-Enterprise Development Programme), India(Rural Women’s Development and Empowerment Project), Dominica and SaintLucia (Rural Enterprise Project), Senegal (Rural Micro-Enterprises Project)and Gabon (Support to Rural Women Project) will carry forward this important

South Western Region Small Farmers Project

in Indonesia (Loan 215-ID), which began activities in1988, exemplifies IFAD’s support of microenterprisedevelopment through microfinance. IFAD promoted anew approach to credit for the poor through member-managed self-help groups, of which 35% are womenonly and 18% are mixed. Credit from Indonesia’s mainrural bank is channeled to these groups for investmentsin viable microenterprise activities. The loans to smallfarmers and landless people are accompanied bytechnology packages and extension services, which alsoprovide a link between the bank and village groups.Initial loan amounts were as low as IDR 100 000 (USD50) per month. The project exceeded its target in theformation of women’s groups, which reached 80%involvement in Lombok, the project’s most successfulprovince in almost all respects. The project's approachhas resulted in exceptionally high repayment rates of

more than 95%.The principal income-generating activity inwomen’s groups is petty trading, followed by livestockrearing. Women’s relatively greater concern for savings,food security and risk minimization was demonstratedby this project, and they showed great diligence assavers, borrowers and microentrepreneurs.The Mid-Term Evaluation noted that 95% of theloan credits have flowed into non-farm/non-land-based activities, mainly because the beneficiaries havelittle or no land. The project is clearly reaching thepoor and has had a strong impact on the self-confidence of women, in particular in their capacity asself-employed microentrepreneurs. They have becomemore productive and active as a result of the project. P4K - Phase III, cofinanced by the World Bank andIFAD, has been prepared following an in-depth

“The number of children is increasing, but theproduction land is the same, and it will be worsewhen the weir is not reliable. The money fromweaving has to cover all the needs of the people.” A Lao Women’s Union village leader, describing the importance of income

from weaving, given the fragile irrigation structure.

WOMEN AND SMALL BUSINESS (microenterprise)

knowledge of the environment andconcern for its sustained well-being.IFAD recognizes that thedevelopment of sustainableagricultural systems depends onimproving women’s access to landand enabling women to use naturalresources in ways that do notdeplete or exhaust the resourcebase.

Over the last twenty years, therelationship of men and women tothe environment has changeddrastically in response to the heavyecological stress in many areas ofpoor developing countries. Toofrequently, rural women inherit asituation in which their rights andaccess to cultivable land havedecreased, and forest, woodlandsand water have grown scarce or

disappeared. These women areknowledgeable, experienced andadaptable environmental managers,because sustainable natural systemsare fundamental to the survival oftheir families and their livelihoods.Yet as they collect firewood andwater, cultivate their fields, grazetheir livestock and collect non-timberforest products, these women maybe forced to violate their own

WOMEN AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The Intensified Land Use Management Project in the Buberuka Highlands of RwandaLoan 314-RW, approved in December 1992, seeks to redress the impact of traditional law on land inheritance, whichfavours men to the exclusion of women. In this context, women-headed households are particularly vulnerable due totheir smaller average size and reduced availability of farm labour. The project has made a special effort to assistfemale-headed households by ensuring that they are an integral component of the target population. Through theproject, families with less than 0.2 ha per family member have priority access to bottom land, and they improveproductivity by terracing the hills and adopting improved production practices. In addition, assurances are beobtained from commune authorities to practice affirmative action in favour of women’s groups and resource-poorlandless farmers in the allocation of unclaimed rehabilitated marshlands. The project, which was stalled in 1994 because of political events in the country, has recently been reformulated,extending coverage to the entire province and using a more participatory methodology.

“Women have a vital role in environmentalmanagement and development. Their fullparticipation is therefore essential to achievesustainable development.”The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Principle 20)1,

June 1992

1Adopted at the United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil, 3-14 June 1992.

2

IFAD’s experience shows that bothenvironmental and household food-security considerations can be takencare of when projects protect andenhance women’s access to land andother natural resources. Women’srights to land under customary lawsare often tenuous. Projectinterventions can change land-usepatterns, and this may haveconsequences for women’s access toland. IFAD has directly addressed thisissue in several of its projects. In

Swaziland, under the recentlyapproved Smallholder AgriculturalDevelopment Project, theGovernment has given the necessaryassurances that land will be madeavailable to women who may nothave access under the complextraditional methods of land allocation,which are biased towards men. In Mauritania, the Maghama ImprovedFlood Recession Farming Project isseeking to redistribute new walo landto 1 200 sharecroppers, many of

2

WOMEN AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development ProjectIn Nepal, the Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (Loan 250-NE, approved in December 1989)was a serious attempt to address environmental issues while protecting and promoting the economic interests ofwomen in particular.This project had the dual objective of raising the incomes of families in the Hills who are below the poverty lineand contributing to improving ecological conditions in the area. This was to be achieved by leasing blocks ofdegraded forest land to groups of poor households. With project assistance to regenerate the land, the goal was toreverse the process of ecological decline while expanding the resource base of the poorest people for theirexclusive use. Assured access to additional fodder production from the leased land would increase the potentialbenefits from livestock production, while also meeting fuelwood and timber needs. Given their traditional involvement in fuelwood and fodder collection and livestock tending, women wereexpected to be the principal participants in the project. Thus the project strategy was to integrate women into themainstream forestry activities rather than develop a specific women’s component. Women, together with men,were expected to be involved in all discussions on the proposals for the development and management of theleased land (e.g., the mix of forage/ trees, species selection). Concerted efforts were to be made to bring women-headed households into the project by giving them preference in all selections. The Mid-Term Review (1996) noted that the project implementation team has worked hard to involve women in allproject activities, that 25% of the leasehold members are women and that farmers’ training is given to bothhusbands and wives. There is an encouraging response from women to the Improved Cooking Stoves programme;they report reduced cooking time and fuel consumption and a less smoky environment within the home assignificant benefits. Despite considerable efforts, however, the involvement of women is impeded by the usualgender-specific constraints, including limited mobility, excessive workload, women’s limited role in public affairs,inadequate information flows to women, low literacy and women’s limited access to land and, therefore, collateral.Even greater efforts are called for and are likely to be forthcoming, as the Netherlands Government has agreed tofund the necessary technical assistance.

whom are women. In Africa, IFAD’s continued emphasison sustainable use and conservationof natural resources was reinforcedthrough the Fund’s Special Programmefor Sub-Saharan African Countries

The importance of livestock in therural economy is well documented.In pastoral societies, social andeconomic life is centered onlivestock, while in farming societies,some form of livestock is kept inmost farming households (althoughthe degree to which animals areintegrated with crop productionvaries with locality). Invariably,women are involved in livestockactivities. They are generallyresponsible for feeding and caringfor livestock that are kept near thehome; where households own ormanage dairy cattle, women are

usually responsible for milking andmilk processing. Many rural womenkeep small stock (pigs, goats orsheep), and most raise a fewchickens for home consumption andsurplus sale. These livestockactivities can improve familynutrition, be an important andgrowing source of farm income, andprovide women with the means toaccumulate savings. Livestock canbe sold for cash in times of need,and women are usually able to retaincontrol over this income. Women’spreferences for livestock are basedon tradition and concern for their

families, but, in reality, poor womenwith little land have fewalternatives. IFAD recognizes boththe roles of women in livestockproduction and its importance tothem. Increasingly, efforts have been

made to address the constraintsfaced by women in livestockproduction and to ensure that animalhealth measures and livestockextension recommendations reachwomen farmers and herders.

WOMEN AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION

Sichuan Livestock Development ProjectWomen in China, as elsewhere, are traditionally responsible for the care of farmyard livestock. Although the designof the Sichuan Livestock Development Project (Loan 233-CH, approved in 1988) did not take gender into account, itnevertheless benefited women. Farm interviews confirmed that women were effectively doing the major share inlivestock husbandry. "On average, women work between 2.5 and 5 hours per day at the activities of collecting fodder,cleaning pens or feeding the animals. In addition, women are often the goat herders who take the flocks to pasture,leaving them to graze while they cultivate their fields.” When asked if they found the extra activities related tolivestock production a burden, women said that they gladly accepted the supplementary load because of thefinancial benefits from their labour. Women’s traditional role in livestock activities had given them a significantplace in the project, and their reaction was very positive. The project was effective in generating income for allproject beneficiaries. In addition, due to China’s socio-economic culture, which is open to the economicadvancement of women, they were able to retain control of their enterprises and the incremental income derivedfrom them. However the Mid-Term Evaluation noted that the project’s technical criteria for selecting among loanapplicants certainly did not allow for the inclusion of the poorest of the poor and were likely to exclude manywomen-headed households.

1Staff Working Paper, No. 18, Technical Issues in Rural

Poverty Alleviation, IFAD, December 1994.

3

3

In 1994, IFAD’s Technical AdvisoryDivision prepared a comprehensivereport 1 entitled Women LivestockManagers in the Third World: aFocus on Technical Issues Related toGender Roles in LivestockProduction. It drew attention to theimportance of focusing specificallyon women in livestock projects, soas to ensure that women receivelivestock loans in their own nameand that women-headed householdsare able to benefit fully.

WOMEN AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION

A large proportion of the credit provided by IFAD-funded projects is usedby women for livestock loans. The Bangladesh CountryPortfolio Evaluation (October 1994) estimated that 75%of all credit funds had been taken up by women and 38%had been used for livestock. Women-headed householdsare particularly attracted to this investment, which canbe treated as an adjunct to their activities around thehomestead. The size of the loan required for a typical

enterprise is also moderate, within the scope of a poor household, and theproduction cycle is usually short, with some returns available very quickly. Although women have proved to be the most reliable borrowers with thehighest repayment rates, they are often at a disadvantage either becauseof built-in prejudices or because of lack of knowledge or information.Situations need to be created in which these factors can be realisticallyovercome. The level and mode of support provided to borrowers are veryimportant. IFAD’s methods of group lending, peer pressure and gendersensitization have frequently produced very favorable results whencombining credit for livestock with targeted loans for women. Women have also benefited from IFAD’s restocking and livestockdistribution (credit-in-kind) programmes. In Indonesia, evaluations of IFAD’sSmallholder Cattle Development Project (Phase I and II) (Loans 035-ID and171-ID, approved in May 1980 and September 1985, respectively) foundthat women benefited indirectly as the draught power of the cattlereduced the time-consuming drudgery of manual land preparation and freedfamily time for more productive activities. It noted, however, that for aproject to have direct relevance to women, animals normally managed bywomen, such as goats, pigs and chickens, should be included. Thus theEastern Islands Smallholder Farming Systems and Livestock DevelopmentProject, Indonesia (Loan 396-ID, approved in December 1995), supports

“Goats probably can contribute more to improvingthe lives of rural women and landless peasants in theThird World than any other animal.”From Women Livestock Managers in the Third World, Staff Working Paper,

No 18, Technical Issues in Rural Poverty Alleviation, IFAD, 1994.

Credit can help alleviate povertywhen loans are used to financesound investments with cash-flowprospects, allowing for profit andmargins for loan repayment. If theincreased incomes translate into anincrease in household assets, thenthe project has laid the foundationsfor a sustainable escape frompoverty. However, credit is not apanacea for the poor, and IFAD hasrecognized this. It can sometimesmake their situation worse. Non-productive use of credit does not

create income and can lead toproblems in loan repayment. Toimprove the status of a poor womanborrower, her credit funds must beinvested properly.Generally, the people know bestwhat type of investment pays intheir village economy. Women oftenstart by investing in livestock andthen move on to other moreprofitable activities; a pattern thatwas borne out in Nepal in theProduction Credit for Rural Womenproject. IFAD facilitates sound

WOMEN, SAVINGS AND CREDIT

“Previously we used to talk a lot about our husbandsand children; now we talk a lot about goats, ginger,potatoes, shop-keeping and marketing.”Woman member of the Production Credit for Rural Women (PCRW) group

in Nepal, 1995.

investment through genuineparticipatory planning, and comple-mentary investments in extension,skills training, literacy, groupformation and infrastructure. IFAD’sproject experience confirms thatwomen are reliable borrowers, with astrong sense of commitment to therural institution that provides the

financial services they require.

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4

WOMEN, SAVINGS AND CREDIT

The Tamil Nadu Women’sDevelopment Projectin India (Loan 240-IN, approved in April 1989) provides financial services directly to rural poor women with theexplicit objective of empowerment.The project now involves more than 4 300 groups and reaches over 10 000 women, many of whom are landless.These former daily labourers on other people’s farms have become small-scale entrepreneurs. Women’s groupshave been formed, and group members have been helped to develop and maintain systematic savings, which hasmade it possible for unregistered self-help women’s groups to open savings accounts. Group lending out ofinternally mobilized savings has promoted a “repayment culture” among group members. Commercial banks,recognizing their potential as new clientele, are helping these rural poor women graduate to being regular bankcustomers. The project continues to demonstrate that banks can lend to women’s self-help groups and still havehigh repayment rates. In addition, there is evidence of considerable social impact on women, especially in well-functioning, homogeneous groups of very poor women, who report a greater degree of self-confidence, greatermobility and greater ease in visiting banks and conversing with officials who visit the village.Encouraged by these achievements, the Government of India has requested IFAD to replicate the experience in otherstates. In December 1996, IFAD approved the Rural Women’s Development and Empowerment Project, to be financedwith the World Bank in six additional states. More than 7 000 women’s self-help groups will be established.

Properly-managed, flexible savingsand credit services to groups of ruralpoor women can contribute to theireconomic and social advancement.Even the poorest women, when theyare included in groups and providedwith appropriate support services,can perform as well as othermembers of the community withrespect to savings, loan repaymentand the ability to use loansproductively. Moreover, when theyhave surplus income, women tend toaccumulate assets so as to protectthemselves and their families againsttimes of hardship. Ideally theyaccumulate productive, time-savingor labour-saving assets, such as land,trees, livestock, agriculturalequipment, processing equipment, a

bicycle, etc. However, if they are toretain control over the asset, theiroptions may be limited, and in manycultures they accumulate jewelry forthis reason.

It is well known that most rural poorwomen, and particularly womenfarmers, are overworked. SeveralIFAD projects have allocated fundstowards the alleviation of women’sworkload in general, usuallyfocusing on the most time-consuming tasks in which womenare engaged — water and fuelwood

collection and food processing. IFADprojects have financed village waterimprovements, communal forestryactivities, technology andequipment for women to processsuch foods as cassava, maize andrice, and milk-processingequipment. IFAD’s cooperation withthe Belgian Survival Fund (BSF) in

WOMEN, TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

the health and nutrition sectors and in testing and extending fuel-efficientstoves has reaped rewards for women and their households as well as forthe environment. Generally, less attention has been given to farming tools and technologythat are both appropriate for women and environmentally safe, particularlyas many projects tend to increase the quantity and physical demands ofwomen’s crop-production activities. Seeking to fill this knowledge gap, IFADrecently initiated a study (with supplementary funds from Japan andcofinanced with FAO) involving extensive field-level research in five

5

countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Thepurpose of the study, ProductionTools for African Women Farmers,was to ascertain what the human,socio-economic, cultural andtechnical contexts were for thepossible improvement of women'sfarm production technology.Information was obtained, inter alia,through focus group discussionsinvolving more than 1 600 ruralpeople, of whom approximately 1250 were women.

Field discussionsconfirmed thatweeding is thehardest, longestand most tediousjob women do, andthat the basic tool used is the handhoe. Furthermore, rural people areaware that the use of the hoeimposes stringent limitations onagricultural production simplybecause there is insufficient timeand labour to cultivate and weedlarger areas. Technology other thanthe hoe is needed, but animaltraction, perhaps the most obviousalternative, is still not generally usedin the countries covered by thestudy. Constraints include lack ofcredit for acquiring animal draughtpackages, shortage of animals,unfamiliarity with draught animals,cultural taboos and other difficultiesfor women in managing animaltraction and draught implements.Market research has seldom, if ever,been conducted on the tools andimplements that would best meetpeople’s needs, especially those of

IFAD’s technical assistance grant to the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM)assessed the socio-economic impact of introducing fish-culture techniques through a demand-driven extensionprogramme for rural households and fish-farming communities in Bangladesh. The programme was conducted withinthe context and project area of the Oxbow Lakes Small-Scale Fishermen Project (Loan 237-BA, approved in December1988). Extension of technology packages was tested and their impact on employment, income and nutrition studied.The role of women in allocating labour under each technology disseminated and adopted and the impact on theirhousehold and farm workload has also been assessed. IFAD is continuing to support this important work, andsuccessful models for integrating fish and rice production in deeply flooded areas will be replicated in ongoing andfuture IFAD investment projects in South and South-East Asia and parts of West Africa.

5

WOMEN, TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

“The old hand hoes of the past were not wideenough and had short handles. That is why most oldwomen from those days have bent backs.”Comment during a women’s discussion group in Soroti, Uganda, IFAD

Study on Production Tools for African Women Farmers, 1997.

The Oxbow Lakes Small-Scale Fishermen Project

In its early projects, IFAD tended toassume that the farm household wasconstituted as one production unitmanaged by a man (the farmer),with family members contributingtheir resources and labour, albeitwith tasks allocated by gender.Through experience, the Fundrealized that in reality most farmhouseholds comprise twointerdependent production units: onemore or less controlled by thehusband and the other by the wife.Both men’s and women’s farmingactivities are driven by subsistenceand cash needs (which togethercontribute to household needs, mostespecially food security), but thereare significant differences in howthese are carried out. Thus, not onlymen but also women within the same

household are producers in their ownright. Field-level acknowledgment ofthis reality has sometimes been slowbecause of the wide-reachingimplications for agriculturalinstitutions, policies, professionalsand projects. Yet lessons have beenlearned and are increasingly beingreflected in the design of IFAD’sprojects in crop production. Thefollowing box illustrates howexperience gained in The Gambiacontributed to the design andorientation of a new project.

Loan 077-GA, approved in December 1981, set out to increase Gambian self-sufficiency in rice production, improvefood security and raise incomes in some 40 villages in the project area. Women, regarded as principal beneficiariesunder traditional systems of swamp rice production, were expected to “receive major benefits from the project.” The Completion Evaluation Report noted that despite some serious drawbacks, notably the unsustainable andinappropriate dependence on capital - and input-intensive technology, the project had a beneficial impact onwomen, household food security and nutrition. This was largely because the overall orientation was correct: riceproduction was and is relatively more important for the poorest farmers, especially women. Even though mentended to take increasing control of the pump-irrigated rice production, the report states that “overall, womencertainly gained from the increased availability of food in the household and the significant reduction of back-breaking labour through mechanical land preparation.” Also, “the project increased food security during thetraditional ‘hungry’ season, improved the nutritional status of women and children, and decreased mothers’ seasonalstress caused by increased workload, low food intake and increased disease prevalence during the rainy season.”

The Jahaly and PacharrSmallholder Project

6 WOMEN AND CROP PRODUCTION

6

A more recent project in The Gambia, the Lowlands Agricultural Development Programme (LADEP) (Loan 375-GA,approved in April 1995), incorporates many of the lessons learned from the Jahaly and Pacharr project, whilemaintaining its important focus on “sustainable improvement of traditional rice production as a means ofenhancing food security for impoverished rural households.” The design explicitly recognizes that in Gambianhouseholds there is limited interaction between the farming activities carried on by men and women. “In reality,two separate farming systems operate in parallel within the household: a lowlands/women/rice/food crop oneand an upland/men/coarse grain and groundnut/cash crop one.”The specific target group is women, who are the traditional rice growers, and the project design includessafeguards to protect their interests, as “there is always the risk that the greater reliability and stability of riceproduction assured by the project works may attract the interest of men, particularly if rice becomes a marketablecrop.” The programme will be demand-driven, and sites will be selected in response to requests from existing rice-growing communities. The engineering technology chosen is proven, simple, low-cost, labour-intensive and easy tobuild and maintain. The production technology promoted is improved yet low-input. The focus is mainly onaddressing transitory and chronic food insecurity of the beneficiary households, rather than generating surplusesfor sale. These considerations make it much more likely that women will be mainstreamed as participants andbeneficiaries of the project.

”Project emphasis has shiftedbetween cash and food crops,depending on perceptions as towhich have the greatest potential forincreases in productivity in a givenenvironment. In addition, it hasfrequently been assumed that ruraldevelopment requires ruralhouseholds to become moreintegrated into the cash economy.Thus, a tendency has been toemphasize cash crops and incomegeneration, at the expense of food

crops and household food security.Projects that intensify cash-cropproduction inevitably increasedependence on markets andvulnerability to market imperfectionsand vagaries. These

“For a man, a crop means income. For a woman, acrop means food. Whenever cash is involved, menalso become involved.”Comment by a member of the field research team, IFAD Study on Production

Tools for African Women Farmers, 1997.

WOMEN AND CROP PRODUCTION

Lowlands AgriculturalDevelopment Programme

WOMEN AND HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY

In its two decades of operations, IFADhas initiated and supported manyproject activities closely associatedwith greater local availability of food,employment generation for the poorand improved nutrition. Whetherimplicitly or explicitly, almost allprojects have had HFS as a guidingprinciple. In seeking to mainstreamwomen in all of its projects, IFAD isalso reinforcing its efforts to improvethe Household Food Security of itstarget group, given the correlationbetween women’s production andincome and HFS.Furthermore, IFAD recognizes thecritical role of health and sanitationfor nutritional well-being. The Fundhas integrated HFS and nutritionobjectives in a number of projectsthrough parallel financing with theBelgian Survival Fund. In Angola,Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali,Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, theUnited Republic of Tanzania andUganda, IFAD loans providingsupport for on-farm production andoff-farm income-generatingactivities are complemented by BSFgrants in support of primary healthcare, domestic water supply andsanitation. BSF has pledged that itsPhase II operations will focusespecially on household foodsecurity and improved nutritionalstatus.The World Food Summit, organized

by FAO in Rome in November 1996,provided an important forum inwhich IFAD could demonstrate itscommitment to household foodsecurity and explain its approach.The Fund presented a paperhighlighting the implications of HFSfor poverty alleviation and nutritionpolicy and action. It stressed theimportance of a s trong participatoryanalysis, a gender perspective andthe promotion of investments tolow-potential areas. The Fund’s

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WOMEN AND HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY

in Zambia (Loan 368-ZM, approved in December 1994) explicitly uses HFS as a guiding principle for the selection ofproject activities in order to promote sustainable household food access in low and medium-rainfall areas. Theproject aims to meet the needs of intended beneficiaries according to their own priorities through participatoryresearch and extension. Gender awareness permeates all activities, recognizing the special constraints faced bywomen and their needs and responsibilities for HFS and nutrition. More stable access to food and enhanced crop resilience to natural risks will result from improved research andextension, particularly on soil and water-conservation techniques and diversification towards drought-tolerantcrops, with particular attention to the natural basis for, and effect on, the local food base and diet patterns.Agricultural goals will be complemented by improving the accessibility of remote areas, upgrading potable watersupplies and diversifying income sources. Household food access in food-deficit periods will be stabilized bybetter storage practices and distribution of insecticides, and improved market access.In parallel, WFP will help maintain a “social safety net” of food supplies through food-for-work programmes, and anumber of NGOs with local experience will play an active role in their implementation. UNICEF will providetechnical and financial support for needs assessment surveys, training of staff, and health and nutrition education.The Government of Zambia recognizes the need for a national perspective and a set of policies and mechanismsthrough which it can consistently address the food-insecurity problem. Given this aim, the project, in tandem withother donors, is helping to build the national capacity to collect and analyze food-security data at the household andregional levels, prepare risk maps and profiles of food-insecure groups, and monitor the effects of policy changes.

“Women are the key to improved HFS and nutritionat the household level. Therefore the developmentof technologies that relieve women’s time burdens inagricultural production and household maintenance,without sacrificing their ability to earn independentincomes, is particularly critical.”Household Food Security: Implications for Policy and Action for Rural

Poverty Alleviation, IFAD, November 1996.

President underlined the importanceof enabling women to raise theirproductivity and of collaboratingwith other agencies to producecomplementary actions in the fightto end hunger. An important

example of the kind of joint efforthe advocated is a recently launched

IFAD project in Zambia that hasHFS as a central objective. The

project assists drought-affectedhouseholds in improving their long-term resilience to food security risksand stabilizing their food access in

deficit periods. It also featuresstrong support for a unified nationalfood, health and nutritionmonitoring information system(FHANIS), integration into a broaderagricultural-sector programme andinter-agency collaboration withUNICEF, WFP and FAO.

The Southern ProvinceHousehold Food Security Programme