Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess women’s decision-making power in small-scale agriculture in six African countries in view of the feminization of agriculture and to discuss the meaning of decision-making in relation to women’s empowerment and sustainability. The data are drawn from a multisite and mixed-method agricultural research and development project in six sub-Saharan countries including two sites in each country. The five domains of empowerment outlined in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index are used to structure the analysis. The results indicate that in the selected sites in Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa, women farmers tend to dominate agricultural decision-making, while the result is more mixed in the Kenyan sites, and decision-making tends to be dominated by men in the sites in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Despite women participating in agricultural decision-making, the qualitative results show that women small-scale farmers were not perceived to be empowered in any of the country sites. It appears that the feminization of agriculture leads to women playing a more important role in decision-making but also to more responsibilities and heavier workloads without necessarily resulting in improvements in well-being outcomes that would enhance sustainability.
Highlights
The production domain in Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) comprises the role of women in decision-making regarding agricultural production and refers to sole or joint decision-making in food and cash crops, livestock and fisheries [39]
The pattern in Ethiopia and Tanzania shows that men are more involved in sole decision-making than women, there is a high proportion of joint decisionmaking in these two countries
Since women play an increasingly important role in agriculture in many African countries, it is important to improve our understanding of the meaning of decision-making for empowerment to inform policy and to develop relevant initiatives that could contribute towards achieving gender equality and sustainability, as highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Summary
The gender gap in agriculture is well documented worldwide and shows that women have less access to productive resources, financial capital, advisory services and economic resources and lack the capacity to invest in agricultural technologies. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8993 and the knowledge to implement new technologies [3,4,5,6] These kinds of barriers hinder productivity, reduce women’s contribution to the agricultural sector and have overall negative effects on food security [3,7,8]. The gender gap imposes high costs for the agricultural sector, the broader economy and society, as well for the women themselves, and women’s empowerment has become a key goal in development work [11]
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