A Gender-Responsive Approach to Climate-Smart Agriculture: Evidence and Guidance for Practitioners

"Taking a gender-responsive approach to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) means that the particular needs, priorities, and realities of men and women are recognized and adequately addressed in the design and application of CSA so that both men and women can equally benefit."

This brief from the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA) focuses on taking a gender-responsive approach to CSA by recognising the specific needs and capabilities of women and men. The premise is that site-specific CSA practices that are also gender-responsive can lead to improvements in the lives of smallholder farmers, fishers and foresters, as well as more sustainable results.

The brief presents recommended criteria for evaluating whether CSA-sensitive practices are following a gender-responsive approach to better respond to the needs and views of women and men, including:

1. The development and application of the practice have been informed by gender analysis which explores differential vulnerability of men and women to risk, opportunities and benefits, power relations within the household and the community, willingness to take on risk, and modes of access to sources of information.
2. All work related to the practice has involved the participation and engagement of men and women - in particular, those who implement the practice - such that communities and experts work together to understand local problems, climate projections, and available assets and services, as well as to identify and test potential solutions for reducing existing gender inequalities and discrimination.
3. Efforts are made to reduce the constraints to uptake of the practice, such as unequal roles in decision-making, unequal access to information or credit, and unequal ownership of land.
4. The practice results in immediate benefits for men and women, such as increased participation of women and youth and other easily marginalised groups in decision-making at household and community levels.

There are, however, challenges to the uptake of a gender-responsive approach, including lack of political commitment or leadership on gender equality due to a lack of gender awareness or resistance to incorporating gender issues into the work.

The brief next explores gender equality in the 3 pillars of CSA:

• Pillar 1: Sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes - Efforts include: systematic gender analysis; resolution of the challenges women experience in accessing, using, and supervising farm labour; improvement in women's access to productive inputs and resources such as extension and technologies; improvement in women's use of agricultural inputs; and improving their tenure of natural resources, as women's lack of access to secure land tenure is a major constraint.
• Pillar 2. Adapt to and build resilience to climate change - "Addressing gender inequalities in the context of adaptation and resilience means developing an understanding of the different ways in which distinct socio-economic groups are affected by and are responding to climatic changes. Then, as resilience-enhancing practices and approaches are developed, it is critical that information is made available and accessible to men and women, boys and girls, and that any potential increase in workload is minimized."
• Pillar 3. Reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas emissions, where possible - Some practices, like improved cooking stoves, biomass for energy, and biogas, may be more attractive to women for their labour-saving features. Therefore, proposed mitigation actions should harness the experiences, expertise, and realities of women and men alike.

Gender-sensitive indicators of the performance of a particular, CSA-sensitive practice include counts of the numbers of women and men engaged in testing or applying practices; they also measure long-term change. Indicators are delineated here, such as those of project outcomes designed to capture information on men and women to analyse the gender-related impacts - e.g., number of farmers participating in functional associations as a result of the project (disaggregated by sex and by type of association, for example, market cooperative, producer association).

Case studies are shared of projects that have applied a gender-responsive approach to introducing CSA-sensitive practices. For instance, CCAFS works with a number of partners including national governments and research institutions to test a range of interventions in climate-smart villages across West Africa, East Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The community chooses its preferred options through a participatory and inclusive process, encouraging women and more vulnerable groups to participate.

"Beyond CSA practices themselves, the institutions involved in climate change adaptation and mitigation will need to partner with women's community-based organizations to go beyond a focus on agricultural productivity and support income generation, access to savings and loans, nutrition and health services. This could also be a means for tapping into women's potential as effective innovators capable of identifying and designing new technologies - and adapting existing ones - to meet their needs....Lastly, more knowledge is needed on how gender roles shape women's and men's lives in engaging with CSA."