Mulugeta Tefera, Daniel Gilligan, Lucy Billings, Jessica Leight and Heleene Tambet REGIONAL WORKSHOP SPIR II Learning Event Co-organized by IFPRI, USAID, CARE, ORDA, and World Vision MAY 16, 2023 - 9:00AM TO MAY 17, 2023 - 5:00PM EAT

1. SPIR II RFSA | 2023 Learning Event
Key findings: gender and participation in
sustainable land management
Dadimos Developments Consultants: Mulugeta Tefera
IFPRI PHND: Daniel Gilligan, Lucy Billings, Jessica Leight
and Heleene Tambet
18 May 2023

2. Content
• Background
• Public Works (PWs) and Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in PSNP
• Participatory watershed development planning
• GSD provisions and Public Works Labor under PSNP
• Women’s participation in SLM decision-making
• Households’ adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) practices
• Outcomes of SLM practices
• Barriers to women’s participation in decision-making and benefits sharing
from SLM initiatives
• Key recommendations

3. Background
• Objective of the study
• As part of the learning agenda of SPIR II this study was
initiated to better understand barriers to women’s participation
in sustainable land management (SLM) activities
• SLM is the use of land resources to meet human needs
by ensuring sustainable productivity.
• Methodologies
• Participatory qualitative assessment methodologies in 2
regions, 4 woredas and 4 watersheds where SPIR II operates
• A total of 12 (8 women) community FGDs and 4 CWSC KIIs
• Conducted in the first week of December 2022.
• Literature on PSNP and SLM was reviewed
• Limitations
• The study is limited to a few watersheds. Findings are good
indicatives but not conclusive to tell about the PSNP at the
national level.

4. Public Works (PWs) and Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in PSNP
• Half of PWs labor goes (51%) to SLM activities
• Source: data collected using the proportional piling method from communities
living in the study sample watersheds

5. Participatory watershed development planning in practice
• As per the community-based watershed (WS) development
guidelines of Ethiopia WS plans are to be prepared at a
community level with CWSC
• However, CWSCs have limited capacity and the planning is top-
down and mostly conducted by development agents alone.
• Only 1 out of the 4 study watersheds prepares a WS plan at the
community level following the participatory procedure.
• This reduces women’s and community roles in SLM decisions:
type of activities, site selections and benefit sharing.

6. PSNP’s GSD provisions and Public Works Labor
• PW related gender & social development (GSD) provisions of PSNP 5:
• PW projects reduce women’s regular work burden,
• Construction of childcare centres at PW sites,
• Lighter tasks for women during PWs,
• Women’s participation in PSNP decision-making structures, and
• Women’s late arrival to and early departure from PW sites.
• Pregnant and lactating women do not participate in PW in all sample areas.
• Women are generally assigned to lighter works.
• High PW norms and longer working hours for women (especially in Amhara),
• Absence of child care centers at PW sites.
• Defined GSD provisions are not fully implemented, mainly because:
• Implementing agencies are not responsive to and accountable for GSD provisions
• GSD provisions aren’t well known by communities and ground-level implementers.

7. Women’s participation in SLM decision making
• Community-level decisions
• Often women have nominal roles in the CWSCs being represented by a
few members and taking non-decisive positions.
• Women are usually cashiers and loan officers but rarely in leadership
roles (chairs or secretaries)
• CWSC’s women members are less empowered to represent themselves
and fellow women’s needs during community decisions on SLM plans
and outcomes
• Household-level decisions
• Married couples jointly decide who should participate in PWs.
• Women in FHHs and polygamous HHs are the main decision-maker and
participants in PWs labor
• In FHHs and polygamous HHs, sometimes, girls miss school due to
responsibilities at home when mothers are at PW sites.

8. Households’ adoption of SLM practices
• Households tend to adopt PSNP’s SLM practices on their
private plots. These include:
• soil and water conservation structures (water retention trench, cut-off
drain, bench terraces)
• planting shrubs and trees to stabilize soil and stone bunds
• planting economically valuable trees (coffee and fruit tree)
• forage production (elephant grasses) on private land
• procurement of forage materials from communal land
• in Amhara:
• application of irrigation water surfaced after SLM
• composting for private lands is sometimes considered as a PW labor contribution

9. …Households’ adoption of SLM practices
Source: Compiled from FGDs data collected using proportional piling technique, December 2022
Figure 4: Proportion of households in the study watersheds who have planted
fruit trees

10. Outcomes of SLM practices
• Adopting some SLM practices increased household income and land
productivity.
• Composting and green manuring enhanced soil fertility on private land,
and reduced fertilizer expenses.
• Planting coffee and fruit trees (avocado, banana, sugar cane, guava, and
papaya) generates income in the medium term.
• Elephant grasses on bench terraces are used for animal feed, which then
contributes to milk production and animal fattening that bring additional
family income and nutrition source.
• Households in Amhara are using fruit trees as loan collateral.
• Surfaced of groundwater as a result of SLM practices is enabling HHs to
access water for supplementary and full-time irrigation. This has the
potential to reduce climatic risks and increase HH oncome.

11. Barriers to women’s participation in decision-making and
benefits sharing from SLM initiatives
• Public work-related barriers:
• nominal participation of women in CWSCs & SLM decisions;
• still engagement in heavier work during public works;
• work for prolonged hours alike fellow men;
• work for a large number of days per month; and
• lack of enabling facilities at work sites such as childcare centres.
• Socio-economic barriers:
• multiple responsibilities of women to keep families and perform PWs;
• marital status - women from FHHs and polygamy families have burdens;
• having no or small sizes of land;
• short of agricultural input supplies (seedlings and seeds);
• limited access to investment capital; and
• climatic risks, mainly drought.

12. Key Recommendations
• Enhance participation of women in community structures, CWSCs: enabling
them to take leadership positions and make SLM decisions.
• Address land shortages with women: organize women’s groups and enable
them to access protected communal lands.
• Address labor shortages among women: provide PW labor support to FHHs
and women of polygamous families.
• Enhance market linkages for input supplies to women: examine current
practice in input supplies and the possibility of using the Inputs Voucher System.
• Expand access to financial opportunities for livelihood investments among
women: This can be grants or/and the accession of loans.
• Promote application of GSD provisions of PSNP 5: Create a wider
understanding on the implementation and monitoring of GSD provisions.
• Promote incentive mechanisms for SLM adopters: These include in-kind
provisions of SLM inputs and administrative recognitions.
• Promote inter-regional best practice forums among SPIR II implementers.