September 2022 TOP POLICY LESSONS IN AGRICULTURE GENDER INNOVATION LAB Across Africa, agriculture is a primary sector of employment—and African women The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) provide about 40% of the agricultural labor across the continent. Yet women farmers conducts impact evaluations of face systemic barriers to success, leading to large gender gaps in agricultural development interventions in productivity that range from 23% in Tanzania to 66% in Niger. These gender gaps Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking not only represent major untapped economic potential, but could also yield sizable to generate evidence on gains for African economies if they were closed. For instance, in Nigeria, closing the how to close gender gaps in gender productivity gap in agriculture could boost gross domestic product by an earnings, productivity, assets, estimated US$2.3 billion and potentially as much as US$8.1 billion due to spillovers and agency. The GIL team is to other economic sectors. Several factors driving female farmers’ lower productivity currently working on over 80 are the time and bandwidth taxes from care and household responsibilities, limited impact evaluations in more than access to and control of hired labor and other productive inputs, skills and information 30 countries with the aim of gaps, low financial liquidity, and restrictive social norms. building an evidence base with lessons for the region. Over 90% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s extreme poor, who are some of the most The impact objective of GIL is vulnerable to shocks, are engaged in agriculture.1 In the face of crises—such as the increasing take-up of effective COVID-19 pandemic and global price shocks—that can exacerbate food insecurity, policies by governments, women farmers need targeted support and access to productive inputs that can development organizations, and secure their livelihoods and mitigate existing gender inequalities. Impact evaluation the private sector to address evidence from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab points toward policy solutions that the underlying causes of gender can address many of these constraints and help women farmers reach their full inequality in Africa, particularly potential. in terms of women’s economic and social empowerment. The DELIVERING GENDER-SENSITIVE AGRICULTURAL Lab aims to do this by producing and delivering a new body of EXTENSION SERVICES evidence and developing a Agricultural extension programs are a critical tool to boost farmer knowledge and compelling narrative, geared techniques; designing them with the needs of women in mind can help them towards policymakers, on what reach more women effectively and close the gender agricultural productivity gap. works and what does not work Increasing the number of female extension agents, providing gender-mainstreaming in promoting gender equality. 1 World Bank. 2020. Supporting Women Throughout the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Emergency Response and Economic Recovery. World Bank, Washington, DC. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab for extension agent training curricula, or targeting the women’s management of cash-crop tasks, and enjoyed training to both spouses can help to improve women substantial increases in the value of household agricultural farmers’ outcomes. GIL has tested several interventions production. Farmers in the couples’ training group planted to make agricultural extension services more effective 20% more trees compared to those receiving an individual for women that can be incorporated into large-scale training without their spouses. The wives’ presence agricultural extension programs. and participation in the creation of an action plan for rubber cultivation increased their visibility and planned Policy in Action: Promoting Gender-Inclusive responsibility in rubber production, which in turn improved Design in Ethiopia the efficiency of household farm production and promoted higher levels of investment at lower cost. The couples’ In Ethiopia, gender-sensitive elements were incorporated training in this study was highly cost-effective, with a total into the agricultural extension service component of the cost per household of US$31, and an estimated return government’s Rural Capacity Building Project (RCBP). factor of 11x at the household level.3 The program increased the number of female extension officers, and trained staff on specific gender issues so that agents would be able to spot potential differences Policy in Action: Building Social Networks in in how female and male farmers respond to services. A Uganda GIL impact evaluation found that the program increased In rural Uganda, an extension program used the power the overall area of cultivated land and the adoption of of female social networks to disseminate new agricultural marketable crops, suggesting that access to extension information. In a first networking session for the program, helped farmers switch to more commercial, market- each woman was paired with another female cotton oriented agriculture. In areas covered by the RCBP, farmer that she did not previously know. After the initial more people contributed to income-generating activities, session, the women were encouraged to stay in touch and which bolstered economic activity. More work was also share new agricultural information about recently adopted undertaken off-the-farm. The impacts of the program cash crops. When compared to standard agricultural benefited men and women equally; while women saw extension programs, the intervention significantly benefits from the program, it did not close the overall increased productivity for all women farmers except for gender gap.2 those in the highest income quintile. In addition, there were significant spillover effects in productivity for male farmers. Policy in Action: Engaging Couple in Côte While further research is needed to determine what drove d’Ivoire the increased productivity, the researchers found that women who were paired with another woman farmer had In Côte d’Ivoire, the Gender Innovation Lab tested several increased levels of agricultural knowledge, measured via interventions to address critical issues in the sector: that tests. These gains in knowledge accounted for roughly women farmers are concentrated in low-value crops, lack 20% of the increase in yields.4 access to key productive inputs, and adopt agricultural technologies at lower rates. In the context of the World Bank PSAC project and working together with the Ivorian Policy in Action: Fostering an Entrepreneurial rubber professional association APROMAC, we offered Mindset for Farmers in Mozambique farmers subsidized rubber seedlings along with a couples’ Recent GIL research has demonstrated that an training in which the male rubber producer and his spouse innovative psychology-based training that encourages jointly received training on agricultural practices, and entrepreneurs and farmers to develop a more growth- and together created an action plan to manage farm tasks— future-oriented mindset, risk-taking, and persistence can addressing possible behavioral barriers to cooperation. lead to large improvements in firm and farm outcomes. Recipients of the couples’ agricultural extension training Building on positive impacts of personal initiative training had higher-quality agricultural planning, increased for entrepreneurs5, the World Bank Integrated Growth 2 Buehren, N., Goldstein, M., Molina, E., and Vaillant, J. 2019. “The Impact of Strengthening Agricultural Extension Services on Women Farmers: Evidence from Ethiopia.” Agricultural Econom- ics 50(4): 407–19. 3 Donald, Aletheia, Goldstein, Markus, and Rouanet, Léa. 2022. “Two Heads Are Better Than One: Agricultural Production and Investment in Côte d’Ivoire.” Policy Research Working Papers, 10047. World Bank, Washington, DC. 4 Vasilaky, Kathryn and Leonard, Kenneth. 2016. As Good as the Networks They Keep?: Improving Outcomes through Weak Ties in Rural Uganda. Economic Development and Cultural Change. 10.1086/697430. 5 Campos, Francisco, Frese, Michael, Goldstein, Markus, Iacovone, Leonardo, Johnson, Hillary, McKenzie, David, and Mensmann, Mona. 2018. Personal Initiative Training Leads to Remark- able Growth of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Togo. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief No. 22. World Bank, Washington, DC. Poles Project in Mozambique combined agricultural gender-sensitivity training, and women’s participation in extension targeted to women farmers with a personal cash cropping. A second economic intervention used a initiative training. The agricultural extension intervention small incentive—project staff visited the households in- focused on promoting experimentation and adoption person, and then gave households a small thank-you of best farming practices and locally relevant cash gift—to encourage men to transfer contracts into their crops, as well as equipping women farmers with basic wife’s name. With the encouragement, about 70% of agribusiness skills to run a farm as a business. The households agreed to transfer a block to their wife—and personal initiative (PI) training focused on fostering an the couples’ training further nudged some households to entrepreneurial proactive mindset (being self-starting, transfer their contracts. Overall, registering the blocks in future-thinking, and overcoming internal barriers that the wife’s name led to more women interacting with the keep individuals from achieving their goals) in both on- purchasing company, and increased the number of blocks and off-farm activities. Results show that the program held by women.6 fostered entrepreneurship outside the farm: doubling the share of women running profitable off-farm businesses Engaging men and women together, through either and generating important additional sources of income intervention, not only empowered women themselves, to the households. The training also enhanced the but also boosted their life satisfaction and that of effectiveness of agricultural extension: leading to large their husbands. The behavior change intervention increases in area cultivated and adoption of fertilizers, increased women’s empowerment through agency and pesticides, good farming practices (e.g., crop rotation achievements, such as increases in self-confidence, and mulching) and cash crops, generating greater overall self-esteem, life satisfaction, and freedom from intimate value of harvest and value of harvest sold. Household partner violence (IPV), with no impact on women’s access expenditures increased, and results persisted after the to resources. Meanwhile, the economic intervention interventions left the field. induced large increases in women’s access to resources (through cane ownership and management) and agency INTEGRATING WOMEN INTO CASH (via increases in decision-making power, for financial, CROP VALUE CHAINS OR ENTERPRISE agricultural, and household management decisions). Combining the interventions offered no additional ACTIVITIES benefit beyond the more effective intervention on its Across Africa, women are often concentrated in low- own, suggesting the different interventions act more as value crops, which limit the potential economic returns substitutes than complements. Importantly, neither of on their farms. Evidence has indicated that when women do manage cash crop plots—and have access to the the interventions led to an increase in IPV or created same inputs and resources as men—they are able to adverse effects on the rest of the household.7 be as productive as their male counterparts. GIL has found evidence for two promising programs and policies Policy in Action: Delivering Cash Grants and a that can help women shift into higher-value activities: Community Livelihoods Program in Nigeria behavioral nudges for male spouses, and cash grants to A program in northwest Nigeria—a region of the country couples through community livelihoods programs. with deeply entrenched norms that restrict women from working—led to strong impacts on the likelihood Policy in Action: Targeting Couples and that women shifted their time to non-farm enterprise Leveraging Incentives in Uganda activities. Participants received a large cash transfer Many women’s empowerment interventions target women and a community livelihoods program (the U.S. Agency directly, with mixed results. Evidence from Uganda for International Development’s Feed the Future Nigeria indicates that engaging men and women together can Livelihoods project). After receiving the services, women help foster women’s participation in cash crop production became more engaged in home-based activities, like petty and management. Couples participated in a behavior trading or rice crop processing. In addition, the community change intervention: a workshop with topics centered emphasis of the program helped reduce potential backlash on communication and cooperation between spouses, from giving cash grants directly to women.8 6 Ambler, Kate, Jones, Kelly, and O’Sullivan, Michael. 2021. “Facilitating women’s access to an economic empowerment initiative: Evidence from Uganda.” World Development 138(2021): 105224. 7 Ambler, Kate, Kelly M. Jones, and O’Sullivan, Michael. 2021. “Increasing Women’s Empowerment: Implications for Family Welfare.” IZA Discussion Paper 14861. 8 Bastian, Gautam, Goldstein, Markus, and Papineni, Sreelakshmi. 2017. Are Cash Transfers Better Chunky or Smooth? Evidence from an Impact Evaluation of a Cash Transfer Program in Northern Nigeria. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief, No. 21. World Bank, Washington, DC. ADDRESING TIME CONSTRAINTS WITHIN THE HOUSEHOLD Most rural households in lower-income countries rely on farming as their primary source of income, and on labor as the primary input to agricultural production.9 However, time is a scarce resource for women farmers, who are more likely than men to care for children while working in the fields. Childcare programs can improve women farmers’ economic status—and that of their households and communities—by increasing the amount of time that women spend in the field and improving their agricultural productivity. In addition, mechanization, particularly in the form of animal traction, has the potential to raise agricultural incomes and facilitate the structural transformation of developing country economies. Beyond economic benefits, labor-saving technology might have differential impacts within the household that are crucial to understand. Policy in Action: Implementing Childcare Centers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo In partnership with the DRC Ministry of Education, the Congolese NGO REPAFE and Save the Children, GIL piloted rural childcare centers in the Kongo Central province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to alleviate women’s childcare constraints. The centers used existing infrastructure provided by the community, and were open five days per week, 6 hours per day over a period of 12 months. Centers were open to children aged 2-6 and followed national standards and international best practices in early childhood development. Results show that demand for the centers was high, with over 70% of households provided access to the centers using them. Women decreased their need to multi-task while farming, reporting increases in their concentration, sense of control and overall happiness. Both women and their husbands increased their engagement in commercial activities, leading to large gains in agricultural productivity and broader household income. The program also revealed positive effects on children’s development. Policy in Action: Expanding Use of Mechanization Among Cotton Producers in Côte d’Ivoire Working with the Ministry of Agriculture in Côte d’Ivoire under the Agriculture Support Project (PSAC) GIL examined the impact for cotton producers of receiving subsidized traction kits (composed of two oxen and traction equipment) on agricultural outcomes, labor supply and human development outcomes (education, health), paying particular attention to gender differences in intra-household effects. Results show that the delivery of oxen had positive short-term impacts on household cotton harvests and sales, and longer-run gains in household cotton cultivation and value of non-labor inputs, despite large reductions in household FOR MORE INFORMATION, plot labor supply by wives and daughters. Girls are also healthier, and boys are PLEASE CONTACT less likely to drop out of school following the introduction of animal traction. These Léa Rouanet findings imply that the adoption of labor-saving technology in male-dominant lrouanet@worldbank.org activities can have large intra-household effects and welfare impacts. 9 Donald, Aletheia, Campos, Francisco, Vaillant, Julia, and Cucagna, Maria Emilia. 2018. Investing in Childcare for Women’s Birce Gokalp Economic Empowerment. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief, No. 27. World Bank, Washington, DC. cgokalp@worldbank.org Photo credit: Kudjo Djogbenyui Nokplim Kaglan/World Bank, Jason Florio/World Bank, Stephan Gladieu/World Bank, and Vincent Tremeau/World Bank 1818 H St NW This work has been funded in part by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), which is a multi-donor trust fund Washington, DC 20433 USA administered by the World Bank to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through experimentation and www.worldbank.org/africa/gil knowledge creation to help governments and the private sector focus policy and programs on scalable solutions with sustainable outcomes. The UFGE is 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.