Gender in Agriculture Partnership

Transforming agriculture to empower women and deliver food, nutrition and income security

AGRA Gender Strategy

AGRA’s commitment to gender mainstreaming is motivated by its mandate to transform African agriculture and reduce poverty and hunger. It is attempting to do so by raising farm yields, productivity and incomes of millions of small-scale farmers, including women who are critical players in African agriculture.
There is compelling evidence to show that relative to their male counterparts, African women farmers face significant constraints that undermine their capacity to effectively engage in productive activities. These constraints run the gamut from unequal access to land, credit, inputs, technologies, extension services to relevant agricultural information farmers need to make critical market decisions.  With recent forecasts estimating a 50 per cent population increase by 2050, matching this rate of population growth with sustainable increases in food production means transforming the lives and economic livelihoods of the millions of Africans, especially women and children who would otherwise go hungry and suffer from high levels of malnutrition.  
AGRA recognizes that women farmers can be a potent force for change and has officially committed to working with both men and women farmers. This document lays out a 3-year gender strategy that reflects AGRA’s vision and mission of transforming African agriculture into “a highly productive, efficient, competitive and sustainable system that assures food security promotes gender equality and lifts millions out of poverty.” The strategy and plan of action lays out a clear pathway and action points for engagement with AGRA partners and stakeholders in overcoming gender barriers and promoting gender equality in Africa’s smallholder agriculture. This will be achieved through four strategic objectives and seven core action areas:

Objectives of the AGRA gender strategy
• Improve the effectiveness of AGRA’s programs in enhancing productivity, food security and incomes through gender integration and gender equitable implementation
• Build staff and grantee gender competencies to integrate, monitor and assess gender effectiveness in country programs and projects
• Adapt organizational policies, procedures and systems to support gender integration in programs and promote a gender equitable working environment
• Build and share knowledge on gender and agriculture in order to advance knowledge, practice and advocacy in gender and agriculture

Strategic areas:

  • Systematically integrate gender dimensions into all AGRA programs with associated results framework showing activities, outputs and outcomes
  • Develop core gender competencies through training and capacity building to integrate gender in programs
  • Put functional systems and procedures in place for staff and grantees to undertake gender integration in programs
  • mplement gender learning and knowledge dissemination platform to continuously foster knowledge sharing and learning that advances staff and grantee capacities in the field of gender and agriculture
  • Expand the gender unit and appoint a director to lead it
  • Create and adopt a gender and diversity policy for AGRA
  • Put gender accountability systems and procedures in place and ensure they are functioning smoothly to show gender mainstreaming results

 

Stakeholder group: 
Regional / Sub-Regional organization
Type of resource: 
gender-approved-strategy.pdf
Author: 
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)