Presented by Margaret Najjingo Mangheni and Sarah Cardey at the Livestock and Fish Gender Working Group Workshop and Planning Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 14-18 October 2013

1. Gender analysis of agricultural innovation
systems in East Africa
Margaret Najjingo Mangheni, Makerere University, Uganda
Sarah Cardey, University of Reading
Livestock and Fish Gender Working Group Workshop and Planning Meeting
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 14-18 October 2013

2. Presentation outline
• Background:
-Project details (title, research team, funders,
objectives, methods)
-Definition of the concept innovation system
-Assumptions
• The gender analysis framework to be used by
the project

3. Project details
• Title: Innovation systems, agricultural growth
and rural livelihoods in East Africa
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Funded by: DFID-ESRC Growth Programme
Research project team:
– University of Reading Chris Garforth, Peter Dorward, Sarah
Cardey, Graham Clarkson
– University of Nairobi Rose Nyikal, Florence Olubayo
– Makerere University Margaret Mangheni, Bernard Bashaasha,
Haroon Sseguya
– Ahfad University for Women Awadalla Saeed, Muna Haddad
– University of Kiel Abdulai Awudu, Taiwo Osun
– USIU, Kenya George Mose, Josiah Ateka

4. Aims and methods
•
Aims are to find out:
– (how) do institutional arrangements for supporting smallholder
farming affect innovation behaviour of rural men and women?
– (to what extent) does innovation by smallholders affects
incomes, livelihoods and the local agricultural economy?
• Innovation includes both:
– new [to the farmer] practice, technology, input, organisation ..
– process (the steps, influences, interactions that lead to a change
taking place on the farm)
• Methods
– Key Informant Interviews
– Participatory research (timelines, innovation histories, maps)
– Survey to test hypotheses linking innovation to outcomes

5. What is an innovation system?
It is a network of organizations, enterprises,
and individuals focused on bringing new
products, processes, and forms of
organization into economic use, together
with the institutions (i.e laws, regulations,
attitudes, habits, practices, incentives)
and services (e.g. input and output
markets, credit, advisory and other
support services) that affect their behavior
and performance.

6. • Innovation requires interfaces that
facilitate knowledge flows and
technology uptake amongst multiple
actors in the innovation system.
• The innovation systems concept
embraces not only the suppliers of
technology but the totality and
interaction of actors involved in
innovation.

7. • It extends beyond the creation of
knowledge to encompass the factors
affecting demand for and use of
knowledge in novel and useful ways.

8. Assumptions
• Agriculture is gendered and the influence of
gender varies between regions and countries.
• Men and women engage with communication
sources differently and use communication
sources to suit their own needs.
• They also sometimes engage with institutions
and services differently.
• Innovation processes are a lot more complex
than helping women with a new commodity

9. Gender Analysis framework
• When thinking about innovations, however, it
may not be helpful to be framework driven
• Need for adaptation of tools, layering in a gender
approach to analysis of power relations
• Start with innovation systems perspective, add
gender as explicit layer

10. Questions to consider in the GA
• Why do women and men innovate?
• Why do they choose not to innovate?
• What are the constraints in their social roles that
prevent innovation?
• What are the social roles that support innovation?
• In which ways and domains are women and men
innovating?
– At which level? (household, community, meso,
macro)
– In which roles (productive? reproductive?
Community?)

11. Institutional arrangements supporting
farmers’ innovation
• Institutions and institutional structures
– Formal and informal institutions
– Within the institutional landscape, how is
gender being taken into account, if at all?
Why?
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How are men included?
How are men excluded?
How are women included?
How are women excluded?
Are gender roles challenged?
Are gender roles reinforced?

12. • How do institutions support or undermine
solidarity and reciprocity between men and
women?
• How do the institutional arrangements support or
undermine equality?
• What are the implications (or ‘results’) for (a)
men, and (b) women?
• Who gains? and at what levels?
• Who loses? and at what levels?

13. Services
• Which services are targeting men?
• Which services are targeting women?
– Why?
– What are the assumptions?
• What services do women want?
• What services do men want?
– How do these services link with their roles?

14. Financing
• Which projects are being financed? How
can they be characterized?
– Which ones target men?
– Which ones target women?
– What is their level of gender awareness?
– Do they support current gender relations?
– Do they challenge them?

15. Information and communication
• Where do men and women get information
from?
• How do men and women process and use
information?
• What are the social learning processes for men
and women?
– How are they different?
• How do they support or inhibit innovation
decisions on the part of men and women?

16. Conclusion
• This is work in progress
• We hope to test and refine the framework