The ACBF delegation at the 22nd African Union Summit, led by the Executive Secretary, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, participated in high level forum organized on the margins of the Summit by the initiative on Empowering Women in Agriculture (EWA) Stakeholders. The forum provided an opportunity to the Executive Secretary to present the main conclusions of the study conducted by ACBF on the mapping of capacity challenges to the empowerment of women in agriculture.
These challenges include:
Capacity Gaps in Policies
- Policy failure is identified as a major impediment. The study reiterates the dysfunction between policy documents and the actual implementation of the policies.
- Policies are not decentralized to sub-national levels, especially those of the development partners
- The importance of policies cannot be overemphasized. Policies and emerging programmes would be necessary if the other impediments are to be addressed.
- It should be a target of immediate capacity building.
Capacity Gaps in Current Initiatives and Programmes
- Lack of skills and knowledge ranked highest followed by lack of credit and third are land.
- Closely related to skills and knowledge is technology which ranks fifth and market access which is also considered fourth in importance.
- It is notable that, although access to land is of considerable importance in all countries, it is ranked fourth in importance. This implies that, land alone is insufficient to empower women.
- While lack of skills and knowledge rank very highly in Malawi and Rwanda, land constraints rank highest in Liberia while credit is ranked highest in Burkina Faso and Tanzania. There are no responses from Ethiopia in this regard.
- Access to other resources for investment on land is probably more important than mere access to land.
Capacity Gaps in CAADP Programmes
- CAADP programmes demonstrate lower levels of gender sensitivity, barely attaining the median level of 2.0.
- CAADP has limited focus in the countries and not fully integrated into the NAS. Need for better integration so that they can complement NAS programmes.
- CAADP programmes have focused more on market access, access to land, training and welfare services with little or no program on infrastructure (very critical to women) in spite of clearly stated policies of CAADP in that regard. Dearth of infrastructure is inimical to progressive agriculture.
- CAADP training programmes do not reflect the peculiar needs of women. Gender-specific training programmes need to be developed to complement existing ones.
- Most CAADP programmes lack access to land and market access focus.
Capacity Gaps in National Agricultural Systems (NAS) Programmes
- NAS programmes are weak in terms of women participation due to weak capacities. Rwanda has best practice of improving women’s profile in leadership.
- NAS programmes do not devote adequate budget for mainstreaming women into programmes. This is due weak analytical skills of government officials. Thus, Governments need to incorporate gender- budgeting into their national budgets.
- More women benefited from training opportunities in Ethiopia, Liberia and Malawi but less in Rwanda, Tanzania and Burkina Faso.
- Majority of countries focused on food crops rather than on cash-crops which would empower more women.
The high level forum was chaired by H.E. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, Champion of EWA. In addition to the co-organisers - Femmes Afrique Solidarité and ACBF - it was attended by most of the EWA stakeholders including the African Union Commission, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations (UNECA, UN-Women, UNDP), OCP, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, etc.
Way forward
In order to ensure that EWA partners contribute to the success of the initiative according to their comparative advantages, ACBF proposed the following way forward
- ACBF to share the draft Survey Report with all EWA Stakeholders for their comments and inputs - by 7 February 2014
- Technical meeting of Stakeholders to discuss the findings, take stock of Partners’ action plans to address the gaps and identify a specific niche for EWA – in March 2014
- Development of EWA Project Document and adoption by EWA Stakeholders – in May 2014
Presentation of Project Document and Pledging Conference for EWA – in June 2014
