#5 POLICY LESSONS ON AGRICULTURE GENDER INNOVATION LAB FEDERATION EVIDENCE SERIES GENDER INNOVATION LAB FEDERATION The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) Federation is a World Bank community of practice coordinated by the Gender Group that brings together the Bank’s five regional GILs: Africa (AFR), East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Middle East and North Africa (MNA), and South Asia (SAR). Together, they are conducting impact evaluations of development interventions to generate evidence and lessons on how to close gender gaps in human capital, earnings, productivity, assets, voice and agency. With over 188 impact evaluations in 66 countries completed to date, the GIL Federation is building the evidence base for governments, development organizations, and the private sector to increase uptake of effective policies that address the underlying causes of gender inequality. Gender productivity gaps in agriculture are large FINDING 1. EXTENSION SERVICES CAN BE around the world, even though women comprise 40–50 MADE MORE COST-EFFECTIVE FOR WOMEN percent of the agricultural labor force in developing IF THEY FOCUS ON WOMEN FARMERS’ countries. Gender differences in agricultural productivity UNIQUE NEEDS can be as high as 66 percent and can cost countries up to $105 million annually. 1,2 Women farmers tend to Access to extension services is significantly lower for produce lower output per unit of land than men farmers women than men. Household responsibilities, mobility because of gender-specific constraints, such as constraints, and cultural factors further hinder women’s unequal access to farm labor, agricultural inputs, lower participation in training activities. Moreover, extension literacy, childcare responsibilities, limited involvement in agents primarily work with the main household decision cash crop production, and lower participation in maker, who is usually a man, and services do not farmers’ groups. Women farmers are concentrated in consider the differential constraints faced by women the lower levels of agricultural value chains and are less farmers. As a result, women farmers mainly receive likely to be active in commercial farming than men. second-hand information from their husbands, and this Restrictive gender norms underlie occupational sex- information may not be attuned to their needs if their segregation in agriculture, leading women to agricultural practices and crop choices are different concentrate in low-value crops. from those of men farmers. Research by the Africa GIL indicates that when women A randomized controlled trial (RCT) by the Africa GIL in manage cash crop plots—and have access to the same rural Uganda shows that using women’s social networks inputs and resources as men—they are able to be as can improve the efficiency of extension services.5 The productive as their male counterparts.3,4 The GIL study compared a standard agricultural extension services program targeting women and men with a Federation is generating rigorous evidence around social network intervention that only targeted women. the world to understand what works, and what does These were randomly allocated at the village level. The not, in narrowing gender productivity gaps and social network intervention connected the least- helping farmers reach their potential. This note productive 30 percent of women farmers to some of the presents evidence on three key findings based on most productive women farmers in their own villages. impact evaluations. The study finds that, on average, the social network intervention was less costly than the traditional program and led to a larger increase in productivity for women farmers offered the couples’ agricultural extension farmers. training planted 20 percent more rubber seedlings compared to when the man alone was offered the The Africa GIL conducted a quasi-experimental impact training and were able to maintain pre-program levels of evaluation of a program in Ethiopia that focused on the agricultural production on older trees and other crops. differential constraints faced by women farmers.6 The This occurred through couples’ group households program trained staff on specific gender issues so that increasing their labor hours and agricultural input use agents would be able to spot potential differences in as a result of higher-quality agricultural planning and a how women and men farmers responded to services. reduction in gendered task division. This study shows The study uses a panel of households and finds that the how including women in economic planning can program increased the overall area of cultivated land improve the efficiency of household farm production and helped both women and men farmers switch to and promote higher levels of investment. more commercial, market-oriented agriculture. The impacts of the program benefited men and women Another study by the Africa GIL in Uganda finds equally, which differs from previous traditional extension that engaging men and women together through programs that proved less impactful for women. behavior change and economic interventions can foster However, given that women farmers were significantly women’s participation in cash crop production.9 worse at baseline, the program did not manage to close Households were randomly assigned to receive either a gender gaps in productivity. behavior change intervention, an economic intervention, the behavior change intervention followed by the In Mozambique, the Africa GIL conducted an RCT to economic intervention, or neither intervention. The test the effects of combining traditional agricultural behavior change intervention consisted of a couples’ extension training targeted at women farmers with workshop centered on communication and cooperation psychology-based personal initiative (PI) training on between spouses, gender-sensitivity training, and developing a growth-oriented, proactive mindset.7 One women’s participation in cash cropping. The economic treatment arm was offered only the standard agricultural intervention involved project staff visiting households in- extension program, and the other treatment was also person and providing a small economic incentive to offered PI training, while the control group was not encourage men to transfer contracts into their wife’s offered any intervention. Results show that women name. offered both extensions services and PI training were significantly more likely to run profitable off-farm The study finds that engaging men and women businesses and increase their earnings. There is together, through either intervention, not only evidence that PI training enhanced the effectiveness of empowered women, but also boosted their quality of life agricultural extension, leading to large increases in area and that of their husbands. Combining the interventions cultivated and the adoption of fertilizers, pesticides, offered no additional benefit beyond the effect of each good farming practices, and cash crops. This led to single intervention, indicating the different interventions greater overall harvest value and sales. act more as substitutes than complements. However, the impact of the interventions occurred through different channels, with the behavior change FINDING 2. COUPLES’ TRAINING CAN FOSTER intervention boosting empowerment through agency WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN CASH CROP and the economic intervention enhancing women’s access to both resources and agency. This indicates PRODUCTION that the ultimate goal of an intervention and the different Training provided jointly to couples can address pathways to reaching it should be considered in the behavioral barriers to cooperation that keep women design of programs aiming to increase women’s away from high-value agricultural production. The Africa empowerment.10 GIL conducted a study in Côte d’Ivoire to estimate the effect of inviting spouses to a traditional agricultural extension training for rubber producers.8 The study FINDING 3. LEVERAGING DIGITAL randomized whether the training was offered to just TECHNOLOGIES CAN REDUCE INFORMATION husbands, to both husbands and wives, or neither BARRIERS AND ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO (control group). Both treatment arms received subsidized high-yield seeds, while the control group did ACCESS NEW MARKETS not receive any intervention. The study finds that The LAC GIL conducted an RCT in Guatemala to test Women in control villages received a placebo video. whether information diffusion through digital This light-touch digital information campaign resulted in technologies can increase women’s market participation increased knowledge about SFP among the treatment in rural areas.11 During the height of the COVID-19 group, especially for women not reached by traditional pandemic, women in randomly selected treatment extension programs. Having more information enabled villages received videos and text messages on their women to increase their sales as well as improve intra- phones via WhatsApp with information about the household decision making about business issues. National School Feeding Program (SFP), which buys half of the schools’ food from local family farming. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Diego Ubfal dubfal@worldbank.org 1818 H St NW Washington, DC 20433 USA https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This brief is a product of collaboration between the World Bank Gender Group and the Gender Innovation Labs. It was prepared by Daniel Halim, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk with key inputs from Diana Arango, Elizaveta Perova, and Rachael Pierotti. It was copy-edited by Leslie Ashby. Other contributors include Lourdes Rodriguez Chamussy, Maria Emilia Cucagna, Isis Gaddis, Markus Goldstein, Jacobus Joost De Hoop, Forest Brach Jarvis, Hillary C. Johnson, Lili Mottaghi, Michael B. O'Sullivan, Laura B. Rawlings, Javier Romero, Jayati Sethi, and Emcet Tas. The World Bank GILs and the GIL Federation are supported by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank and supported with generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. ENDNOTES 1 Banerjee, Raka, Kajal Gulati, Michael O'Sullivan, Arathi Rao, Margaux Vinez. 2014. Levelling the field: improving opportunities for women farmers in Africa. Working Paper 86039, World Bank. 2 UN Women, UNDP, UNEP, and World Bank Group. 2015. The Cost of the Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. UN Women, UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank Group. 3 Das, Smita, Clara Delavallade, Ayodele Fashogbon, Wale Ogunleye, and Sreelakshmi Papineni. 2021. Occupational Sex Segregation in Agriculture: Evidence on Gender Norms and Socio-Emotional Skills in Nigeria. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9695. 4 World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab. 2022. Top Policy Lessons in Agriculture. 5 Leonard, Kenneth and Kathryn Vasilaky. 2016. As Good as the Company They Keep? Improving Farmers’ Social Networks. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief No. 15, World Bank. Also see published version: Vasilaky, Kathryn and Kenneth Leonard, Kenneth. 2018. As Good as the Networks They Keep? Improving Outcomes through Weak Ties in Rural Uganda. Economic Development and Cultural Change 66 (4): 755-792. 6 Buehren, Niklas, Markus Goldstein, Ezequiel Molina, and Julia Vaillant. 2017. The Impact of Strengthening Agricultural Extension Services: Evidence from Ethiopia. World Bank Policy Research Working 8169. 7 Montalvao, Joao. 2021. Empowering Women Farmers: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Mozambique. Africa Gender Innovation Lab. Presentation. Gender Learning Week 2021, World Bank 8 Donald, Aletheia, Markus Goldstein, and Léa Rouanet. 2022. Two Heads Are Better Than One: Agricultural Production and Investment in Côte d’Ivoire . World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10047. 9 Ambler, Kate, Kelly Jones, and Michael O'Sullivan. 2021. Facilitating women’s access to an economic empowerment initiative: Evidence from Uganda. World Development 138(2021): 105224. 10 Ambler, Kate, Kelly Jones, and Michael O’Sullivan. 2021. Increasing Women’s Empowerment: Implications for Family Welfare. IZA Discussion Paper 14861. 11 Perego, Viviana, Javier Romero, Katie Freeman, Angela Lopez, Glenn Ortiz, Hugo Salas, Rudy Ramirez, Arianna Locatelli, Danielle Orihuela, and Camila de Ferrari. 2022. DIGITAGRO - Investing in Digital Technology to Increase Market Access for Women Agri-preneurs in Guatemala. Washington, DC: World Bank.