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Nowadays, women’s contribution to society through their social and human involvement at the household level in terms of education, care, and nutrition, as well as their added value to economic functioning, is increasingly recognized. However, most of the related research highlights the relative contributions of women and men. This paper proposes to analyze the link between women’s contribution to social, economic, and financial activities and the rural livelihood of the whole household farm. Based on a household survey that included a respondent section for women from over 285 families in the least rurally developed regions of Morocco, descriptive statistics and systemic analysis successively based on multiple factorial and clustering analyses were used to analyze the links between household adaptative capacity and women’s material and immaterial contributions. The results revealed that women play a crucial role in intergenerational knowledge transfer, which constitutes a critical factor in household capacities and reproduction, especially in the least endowed households. However, the women’s farm or off-farm activities did not guarantee their autonomy. So, the contribution of women to household farm livelihood through their know-how opens alternative pathways to reconsider their contribution to the overall goal of livelihood improvement.

The role of agency in women’s empowerment, whether individual or collective, has long been at the center of feminist discourse. Although, highly context dependent, studies on agency are less contextualized. Based on mixed methods, we generated in-depth understandings of what constitutes agency in livestock-based institutions, and associated contextual factors across three regions. Agency, the ability to make effective participation, conceptualization is based on four main dimensions, in turn associated with key agency enabling resources. The agency-enabling resources such as years of schooling, land holding, sheep flock size, number of women in the leadership committee, along with location and distance to extension services variables were associated with the ability to effectively participate. Study participants are aware of the influence of normative environment but lack the power to challenge it. If supported and used as a means, the collective action, breeding cooperative, itself could potentially generate its members such power. Plain Language Summary Although agency plays an important role in women empowerment, its contextual understandings in the livestock-based systems is missing in the literature. Hence, the purpose of this study was to understand agency in the context of livestock-based institutions in Ethiopia. Based on mixed methods approach, we demonstrate that agency conceptualization differs along gender lines and found to be highly context specific. The ability to effectively participation (agency) in the breeding cooperative is conceptualized based on four main dimensions. Agency enabling resources such as years of schooling, land holding, sheep flock size, number of women in the leadership committee, and distance to extension services variables are associated with the ability to make effective participation in the breeding cooperatives. Cooperative members are aware of the influence of normative culture but lack the power to challenge it. If supported properly and used as a means, the breeding cooperative itself could potentially serve to generate its members such power. Hence, one of the immediate recommended actions would be making use of and strengthening the existing consciousness exhibited among the literate community members regarding the negative effect of social norms to initiate community level dialogs for transformational impact. Despite the interesting findings reported, the effect of culture on explaining the differences observed among the study sites were not explored in detail due to lack of information in the dataset used for the analysis.

Background Women's empowerment constitutes an important aspect of the development agenda. Although it is highly contextual in nature, empowerment literature so far has focussed on identifying factors associated with empowerment, neglecting the importance of understanding which empowerment resources and agency dimensions are more important for whom and under what contexts. This is important, because we cannot talk of empowerment for those who are not in a disempowered condition or who do not value it. We examine the gender differences in the relative valuations of empowerment resources and decision-making areas across different farming systems, and examine the most valued empowerment resources. Methods Using a mixed methods approach, data on major household decisions, empowerment resources, and their relative importance were collected. Pairwise ranking methods were used to assess their gendered relative importance. Individual interviews using Ryff’s psychological well-being (PWB) items were conducted to obtain quantitative data on the key empowerment resource, which emerged as an important aspect of empowerment from the pairwise ranking exercises. Drawing on the empowerment framework and self-determination theory, we analysed the data. Results Our results show that the major empowerment resources and decision-makings that are valuable to men and women vary across gender and farming systems. In general, men place a greater importance on decisions about livestock, crop and finances. The women valued decisions regarding crop, livestock and social relations. Regarding empowerment resources, psychological well-being was found to be one of the most important resources, for women as well as men. Assessment of the basic psychological needs―autonomy, self-acceptance, and positive relations―statistically yielded no significant differences between the gender groups. However, the effects of location and the intersection of location with gender were both found to be statistically significant, suggesting that being men and from Horo is associated with higher scores on self-acceptance and personal relation subscales. Conclusions We conclude that gender and location play important roles in forming contextual conditions for empowerment and agency implying that empowerment efforts need to consider both. More specifically, policies and intervention efforts to empower individuals or groups must begin by first building their psychological assets and consider contextual gendered perceptions of resources.

Providing farmers with essential agricultural information and training in the era of COVID-19 has been a challenge that has prompted a renewed interest in digital extension services. There is a distinct gender gap, however, between men’s and women’s access to, use of, and ability to benefit from information and communication technologies (ICTs). The overall purpose of this research is to examine how digital extension can address gender inequality in rural areas in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by designing and evaluating the gendered impacts of a digital extension intervention delivered to 624 farmers (363 men and 261 women) (which included phone distribution, radio and SMS messages, and sharing of information prompts) in northern Tunisia. In order to assess the effectiveness of gender-responsive digital extension that targets husband and wife pairs, as opposed to only men, we employed logistic regression and descriptive statistics to analyze a sample of 242 farmers (141 women and 141 men). We find that phone ownership facilitated women’s access to their social network, as well as agricultural information and services, ultimately improving their participation in household decision making and agricultural production. We find that gender-responsive digital extension is effective for men and especially women in terms of usefulness, learning, and adoption. We identified education level and cooperative membership as important factors that determine the impact of digital extension services on farmers and demonstrate the positive impact of radio programming. We recommend strengthening phone access for women, targeting information (including through non-written ways) to both husbands and wives, using sharing prompts, and more rigorous extension for knowledge-intensive topics such as conservation agriculture and rural collectives.

Agricultural technologies, including modern/improved crop varieties, are a critical measure for improving productivity, meeting food security needs, and bridging inequalities. This notwithstanding, adoption of some improved crop varieties in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) tends to be low, with factors such as limited information, poor access to inputs, and risk averseness cited as reasons for low adoption. Few studies in SSA, and Ethiopia particularly, examine the influence of lentil trait preferences on adoption, and the ones that do only look at farmers’ perspectives who are often treated as a homogenous group. This is despite the importance of lentils as a subsistence and growing market crop, and the fact that diverse factors may determine adoption among farmers. To address these knowledge gaps, this study used a mixed methods approach involving multiple stakeholders (n = 808) to understand gendered patterns in lentil varietal adoption and trait preferences, using an intersectional lens. The findings revealed low adoption rates for improved varieties for women and men alike due to poor disease resistance, and insufficient attention from the breeding programs to preferred processing and consumer traits, as well as the differentiated needs of farmers. Paying attention to these trait needs serves to inform gender-intentional breeding and improve the income generation potential of lentil varieties for diverse farmer groups. As such, we recommend sex-disaggregated data collection from socially differentiated groups and market representatives in order to inform breeding priorities along with the development of multiple varieties that suit different needs.

Livestock have strong empowerment potential, particularly for women. They offer millions of women in the Global South the opportunity to provide protein-rich foods for home consumption and sale. Livestock provide women with income and opportunities to expand their livelihood portfolios and can strengthen women’s decision-making power. Fully realizing livestock’s empowerment potential for women is necessary for sustainable livestock development. It requires, though, that gender-equitable dynamics and norms are supported in rural communities. We draw on 73 village cases from 13 countries to explore women’s experiences with livestock-based livelihoods and technological innovations. Our analysis follows a gender empowerment framework comprised of four interdependent domains—recognition of women as livestock keepers, access to resources, access to opportunities, and decision making as a cross-cutting domain—which must come together if women are to become empowered through livestock. We find improved livestock breeds and associated innovations, such as fodder choppers or training, to provide significant benefits to women who can access these. This, nonetheless, has accentuated women’s double burdens. Another challenge is that even as women may be recognized in their community as livestock keepers, this recognition is much less common among external institutions. We present a case where this institutional recognition is forthcoming and illuminate the synergetic and empowering pathways unleashed by this as well as the barriers that remain.

Development efforts have increased women’s perceived empowerment and freedom, yet have failed to sustainably alter gender norms. There is a lack of research investigating reasons for this anomaly. This study, departing from the conventional approach, tries to fill this gap by employing an interpretative phenomenological approach to assess how women have managed to achieve expanded agency while living within a constraining normative environment. We argue that women have the capacity to deviate and the intentions that lead to new behaviors emerge not only from individuals’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, as suggested by the Theory of Planned Behavior, but also in combination with demographic and economic factors. Individuals need to make decisions in three areas ―self-conviction (attitude and perceived behavioral control), subjective norms (within household and community), and structures (state and non-state institutions). The results shed light on alternative empowerment pathways that could potentially inform the design of transformational interventions.

Irena MEDJEDOVI? and Andreas WITZEL's work offers an insight into the topic of secondary analysis and research. The composition of the book is well-conceived, and chapter by chapter the authors examine the various facets of secondary analysis. The book covers key issues on the topic of secondary analysis, referring not only to existing literature but also using examples that foster a better understanding of this research strategy. They succeed in stimulating interest in this topic, as well as illustrating the effectiveness of this research method and reducing skepticism and doubt regarding secondary analysis. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]