101723 Policy Brief Issue 13 | December 2015 COSTING THE GENDER GAP In sub-Saharan Africa women comprise a large proportion of the agricultural labor force, yet they are consistently found to be less productive than male farmers. The gender gap in agricultural productivity-measured by the value of REDUCING THE agricultural produce per unit of cultivated land-ranges from 4-25%, depending GENDER GAP on the country and the crop.1 The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab, UN Women, and the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative jointly CAN PLAY A produced a report to quantify the cost of the gender gap and the potential SIGNIFICANT gains from closing that gap in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.2 ROLE IN POVERTY This report illustrates why the gender gap matters. Closing the gender gap of REDUCTION 28% in Malawi, 16% in Tanzania and 13% in Uganda could result in gross gains to GDP, along with other positive development outcomes, such as reduced AND IMPROVED poverty and greater food security. The identified gains, represented in the figures NUTRITIONAL on page 2, send a strong signal to policymakers that closing the gender gap is OUTCOMES. smart economics. However, it is important to stress that these potential gains do not come without cost. Closing the gender gap will require changing existing or designing new policies, which may require additional resources. ANNUAL COST OF THE GENDER GAP IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY $100 MILLION $105 MILLION $67 MILLION MALAWI TANZANIA UGANDA Figure 1 1 World Bank and ONE, 2014 2 World Bank. 2015. The cost of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. AGRICULTURAL CLOSING THE GAP CORRESPONDS TO PRODUCTIVITY GAP MALAWI 7.3% increase in $90 million increase $100 million increase 238,000 people lifted crop production in agricultural GDP in total GDP out of poverty 28% 80,000 people lifted TANZANIA 2% increase in $85 million increase $105 million increase out of poverty; crop production in agricultural GDP in total GDP 80,000 more people 16% adequately nourished UGANDA 2.8% increase in $58 million increase $67 million increase 119,000 people lifted crop production in agricultural GDP in total GDP out of poverty 13% Figure 2 WHAT CAUSES THE GAPS? A large part of the DETERMINANTS OF THE GENDER GAP gender gap can be IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY attributed to differential MALAWI TANZANIA UGANDA access to male family DETERMINANT % of gap % of gap % of gap labor in Tanzania and Qty of male family 45.19 97.34 n.a. Malawi. One key reason labor per household for why women farm High-value crops 28.43 3 13.29 managers have less Agricultural 17.76 8.18 9.02 implements access to male family Pesticide use 0.97 12.03 4.45 labor is that the majority Inorganic fertilizer use 5.32 6.39 3.04 of them are widowed, Wealth index 3.29 -0.1 n.a. separated or divorced. Women farmers are less n.a.= not available, statistically significant factors are marked in bold. likely to grow cash or export crops than men who grow and sell these crops to the market for higher incomes. Women’s access to agricultural implements and machinery is significantly FOR MORE INFORMATION, lower than that of men in all three countries. PLEASE CONTACT Markus Goldstein POLICY PRIORITIES mgoldstein@worldbank.org 1. Narrow the gender productivity gap due to lack of access to labor Moa Westman 2. Enable women farmers to move into cultivation of high-value cash crops Moa.Westman@unep.org 3. Improve women farmers’ access to and use of non-labor inputs Asa Torkelsson The task now is to design innovative and cost effective interventions to achieve asa.torkelsson@unwomen.org these priorities. View the full report here: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/10/25155021/cost-gender-gap-agricultural-productivity-malawi-tanzania-uganda