Gender
Helping women help themselves
Compared to other wealth and income opportunities, livestock are inflation-proof, self-perpetuating assets that women can own and benefit from. In addition to wealth accumulation, they provide income and nutritious food for their families.
While women assume much of the responsibility for raising livestock in many developing countries, they often face financial and cultural barriers to maximising this potential. By investing in women farmers, women, their families and communities can benefit.
Women’s role in livestock enterprises:
Two-thirds of the world’s 600 million poor livestock keepers are rural women who do most of the day-to-day farm animal management as well as the processing, marketing and selling of animal produce. But due to social norms, women’s control over the income generated often remains substantially less than men’s.
Women’s empowerment:
Women who access and control livestock assets improve the health, education and food security of their households. 90% of income under the control of women is channeled back into their households or local communities, compared with only 30-40% for men.
Women and household nutrition:
Women’s decisions about what they themselves eat while pregnant, and what food they provide their young in the first 1,000 days of their lives, generates lifelong health, growth and cognitive benefits or costs for those children.
(Credit: ILRI/Mann)
Women’s role in livestock enterprises:
Women’s contributions to the management of livestock and its role in their economic empowerment should be recognized in the design of gendered services and policies. Investments in livestock improvement and technologies should be gender-sensitive to address the specific constraints faced by women.
Women’s empowerment:
Because livestock are often the first stepping stone towards women’s economic empowerment, policy and legal environments should recognize and protect women’s ownership of livestock. Livestock development programs should use a gendered approach that empowers women to own and manage livestock and have control over the accruing economic benefits. Such programs will also enhance more equitable benefit sharing.
Women and household nutrition:
Because women manage food consumption decisions in their households, greater ownership and management of livestock and animal-source foods by women contributes to better household nutrition. In addition, awareness creation programs among women on the nutritional value of animal-source foods, especially for infants, would improve household nutrition.
Women’s role in livestock enterprises:
- 2011. The State of Food and Agriculture-Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development. Rome: FAO. http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf
- Kristjanson, P., A. Waters-Bayer, N. Johnson, A. Tipilda, J. Njuki, I. Baltenweck, D. Grace, and S. MacMillan. 2010. Livestock and Women's Livelihoods: A Review of the Recent Evidence. Discussion Paper 20. Nairobi: ILRI. http://hdl.handle.net/10568/3017
- Mwangi, K. W. 2011 Challenges facing women in the zero grazing livestock production system in Kenya: A case of Karuri location Kiambu County. Nairobi: University of Nairobi. http://hdl.handle.net/11295/62724
- Njuki, J. and Sanginga, P. C. 2013. Women, livestock ownership and markets: Bridging the gender gap in eastern and southern Africa. London: Routledge. http://hdl.handle.net/10568/34088.
- 2008. DAC Guiding Principles for Aid Effectiveness, Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. Paris: OECD. https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/42310124.pdf
- Thornton, P.K.; Kruska, R.L.; Henninger, N.; Kristjanson, P.M.; Reid, R.S.; Atieno, F.; Odero, A.N.; Ndegwa, T. 2002. Mapping poverty and livestock in the developing world. Nairobi: ILRI. http://hdl.handle.net/10568/915
- Thornton, P.K., Kruska, R.L., Henninger, N., Kristjanson, P.M., Reid, R.S., Robinson, T.P. 2003. Locating poor livestock keepers at the global level for research and development targeting. Land Use Policy 20(4): 311-322. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0264-8377(03)00034-6
Women’s empowerment:
- Bravo-Baumann, H. 2000. Livestock and gender: a winning pair - Capitalisation of experiences on the contribution of livestock projects to gender Issues. Working document. Bern: Swiss Development Cooperation. http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/sites/bridge.ids.ac.uk/files/docs_genie/sdc/Gender_and_Livestock.doc
- 2011. The State of Food and Agriculture-Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development. Rome: FAO. http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf
- Flintan F. 2011. The Changing Nature of gender roles in the drylands of the Horn and East Africa: implications for DRR programming. Oxford: REGLAP. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/drought/docs/1_Gender%20and%20DRR_FINAL_Dec%202011.pdf
- Kennedy, E. and Peters, P. 1992. Household food security and child nutrition: the interaction of income and gender of household head. World Development 20(8): 1077-1085. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(92)90001-C
- Quisumbing, A.R., Brown, L.R., Feldstein, H.S., Haddad, L., and Peña, C. 1995. Women: The key to food security. Washington DC: IFPRI. http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/125877
- Rubin, D., Tezera, S., and Caldwell, L. 2010. A calf, a house, a business of one’s own: Microcredit, asset accumulation, and economic empowerment in GL CRSP projects in Ethiopia and Ghana. Davis, USA: Global livestock collaborative research support program. http://www.culturalpractice.com/wp-content/downloads/3-2010-19.pdf
Women and household nutrition:
- Quisumbing, A.R. 2003. Household Decisions, Gender, and Development: A Synthesis of Recent Research. Washington DC: IFPRI. http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/129647
- Mason, A.D. and King, E. M. 2001. Engendering development through gender equality in rights, resources, and voice. Washington DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/512911468327401785/Engendering-development-through-gender-equality-in-rights-resources-and-voice
- Smith, L.C., Ramakrishnan, U., Ndiaye, A., Haddad, L.J. and Martorell, R. 2003. The importance of women's status for child nutrition in developing countries. IFPRI Research Report 131. Washington DC: IFPRI. http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/90850
- Valdivia C. 2001. Gender, livestock assets, resource management, and food security: lessons from the SR-CRSP. Agriculture and Human Values 18 (1): 27-39. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007613031102.
