A Review of Innovation Systems Framework as a Tool for Gendering Agricultural Innovations: Exploring Gender Learning and System Empowerment

Abstract

Purpose:To reflect on the opportunities that a systems understanding of innovation provides for addressing gender issues relevant to women, and to provide some insight on how these might be tackled.Approach:Review of literature relating to gender issues and how they relate to achieving, on the one hand, equity and efficiency goals, and on the other hand innovation in agriculture. The analysis draws lessons that inform an analytical framework for gendering agricultural innovation in an African context.Findings:The analytical frameworks that have been used to debate gender have ignored the complex environment under which gender roles manifest. The review analyses the innovation systems framework as a tool for gendering agricultural innovations, including embedded activities like agricultural extension services. This framework has provision for actors and their roles in the agricultural innovation system and embedded sub activities.Practical implication:The article concludes with a call for a shift from gender analysis to gender learning1 and a shift from women's empowerment to empowering innovation systems capacity. Originality/Value: In the current context under which agricultural systems are becoming increasingly integrated, an analytical approach that takes cognisance of the complex environment under which gender and gender roles manifest is of interest for policy-makers, gender advocates and development workers for identifying entry points for engendering innovations towards gender equity in Africa.