By India Meshack
 |
Photo credit adapted from "Ngurumo Village-Takira (Kenya),"courtesy of
Flickr user CGIAR Climate |
In a big move towards the
further mainstreaming of the global women’s empowerment movement, the United
States government’s Feed the Future Initiative (IFPRI), the US Agency for
International Development (USAID), and Oxford University’s Oxford Poverty &
Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
teamed up to create the recently launched Women’s
Empowerment in Agriculture Index, a new index which measures women’s empowerment
in developing countries by evaluating their level of involvement in
agricultural practices. The index is a response to research establishing a link
between a woman’s involvement in agricultural practices and her level of
emancipation in other areas of daily life. According to Sara Immenschuh of the IFPRI,
who took part in the development of the index, “’Agriculture is the most effective
way to drive inclusive economic growth of the poorest communities’, which too
often include women and children.”
The index assesses five criteria, amongst them: degree of engagement in
decision-making about agricultural production, level of access to resources and
level of involvement in resource-related decision-making; extent of control over
use of income; ability to have a leadership role in the community; and use of
time.
In 2011 pilot programs were launched in Bangladesh,
Guatemala and Uganda, with results—the extent to which women were deemed empowered—based
on how they fared in relation to the five criteria. A woman who scores a 4 out
of the 5 is deemed empowered. According to the IFPRI, although they make up 43
percent of the agricultural labor force, women in developing countries own less
land, are limited in their ability to hire farm workers and have less access to
credit. In Immenschuh’s opinion, “Without addressing those inequities, women
will be unable to effectively contribute to reducing global poverty and
hunger.” IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Agnes Quisumbing adds, “We want to
improve gender parity not by disempowering men but by bringing women up to the
level of men.” This index is certainly a step in the right direction towards
achieving that goal.
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