Presented at the Agri4D 2013 conference at the session on Transforming Gender Roles in Agriculture: - Ways Forward

1. The possibilities and challenges
for gender neutral pro-poor
agricultural growth in Malawi and
Zambia
Agnes Andersson-Djurfeldt
Ellen Hillbom

2. Background
• AFRINT
• Data collection in 2002 and 2007/8 applying mixed methods
combining qualitative village level information with
quantitative household panel data
• Nine African countries, eight villages per country, 880
households in Malawi and Zambia
• Focus on smallholder production and staple crops
• Split into numeous smaller projects

3. Results and way forward
• Three villages in Malawi and three in Zambia identified as
’successful’
• Successful = majority of households having the capacity to
save. Possibly a result of market opportunities?
• Could the answer to why households are deemed successful
be found in gender relations within the household?
• Inspiration for setting up a new research project

4. Basis for current project
• The end goal of agricultural transformation
• By the means of pro-poor agricultural growth
• Continued focus on smallholders and inclusive production
stratgies combined with commercial integration
• Women are key actors!
• If women are to be part of a success story there is need for
gendered access to resources and markets.

5. Purpose
”… to consider the local level conditions for pro-poor agricultural
growth in relation to gendered access to productive resources
and markets and the institutional challenges for achieving
gender based incusivity …”
• Three legs:
• Gendered access to resources
• Commencialization
• Institutional setting

6. Mixed methods approach
• A third round of quantitative household panel data for 8 + 8
villages i Malawi and Zambia in 2013
• Adding qualitative data collection in the 3 + 3 successful
villages

7. Household level interviews
• Collaboration with local partners, both senior researchers and
students
• Interviewing female headed households as well as women and
men within male headed households
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Production patterns
Access to and control over productive resources
Marketing of produce
Access to farm and non-farm incomes

8. Key informant interviews
• Senior Swedish and Malawian/Zambian researchers
• Individual and focus groups
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Women and men
Extension officers
Farmers organizations
Community grops
Human capital building, and so on

9. Current stage
• Results are comming in
• Preparing for analysis
• Initiated outcomes
• Using a framework inspired by Chant investigating to what extent
women access and control agricultural resources
• Household size (differences between male and femal headed
households) – an asset or hinderence?
• Qualitative comparison between women dominated and men
dominated farmers’ organizations, e.g. cooperatives and women’s
groups

10. The end