In 1993, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development (MAWRD) made a request to FAO for assistance to reorient the extension service to be more responsive to the needs of small-scale subsistence farmers in the communal areas of the country. Although MAWRD increased the number of extension staff in the communal areas after independence, extension services in Namibia were still in the early stages of development and were severely constrained by a lack of human and material resources. There were estimated to be only 150 extension staff. In the Northern Extension Region, where the vast majority of communal farmers live, there was one extension officer for every 4000 farming families. Moreover, only a small part of the activities which were being carried out by field staff could be defined as extension work. Most of the staff's time was taken up with administrative tasks mainly involving the supply of inputs to a limited number of better-off farmers. Within this framework, there was also a lack of suitable extension messages to deliver, especially those appropriate to resource-poor and subsistence farmers, the majority of whom are women8.
The aim of the "Training for the Integration of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development" (TCP/NAM/4451/NAM) project was thus to assist the Ministry in its desire to move towards a more client-responsive extension approach in which "client" was explicitly understood to include women farmers, female headed households and rural youth (as was eventually spelled out in the National Agricultural Policy). The question the project sought to address was "how" to build capacity within the Ministry to bring about this transformation.
The project was thus designed to provide support for a training programme that would enhance extension workers' abilities to identify communal farmers' extension priorities, and to understand how these priorities differ by gender, age, wealth, ethnicity and farming system ( i.e. the analysis of difference in agricultural extension). A particular focus of the training would be on learning participatory planning techniques based on a combination of gender analysis and participatory rural appraisal (GA/PRA). The training would include a field experience of using PRA tools to see the variation of needs within a local community. In order to meet the objective for building capacity within the Ministry, the project would support training of trainers to provide a lasting, institutional resource for the Ministry. As a final project activity, the newly prepared trainers would conduct regional workshops throughout Namibia to train their colleagues in the analysis of difference for agricultural extension.
This project is part of an inter-regional project funded by the Norwegian government being carried out in Namibia, Tanzania and Nepal. The project was designed to provide follow-up in countries where FAO had assisted Ministries of Agriculture to prepare sector reports on Women, Agriculture and Rural Development for reporting to the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995.
The Namibian report to Beijing identified three key obstacles to improving the situation of rural women in the country. The first was the scarcity of gender-disaggregated information on the situation in the communal farming areas9. The report identified that there was almost no information "from the source" about what were the most pressing problems and needs for agricultural development in communal areas, much less information on gender based differences. The second obstacle was the absence of a clear policy for addressing gender issues in the agricultural sector which would provide a mandate to Ministry personnel to take action10. Closely related to these two problems was the lack of awareness among Ministry staff and others working in the sector of the gender based characteristics of agricultural development in Namibia.
"Improving Information on Women's Contribution to Agricultural Production for Gender Sensitive Planning" (GCP/NAM/005/NOR) was designed to address these problems. Methodologically, the project had two particular concerns: the first was "how" to give rural men and women a "voice" in the planning process. The second was "how" to enrich a generally weak information base in a cost-effective and timely manner, especially in light of the fact that the Ministry was in the midst of its own consultative process to formulate a new agricultural policy and strategy. As a research methodology, participatory rural appraisal11 seemed better suited to addressing these two problems. As a pilot effort, the project would experiment with using PRA to make micro-level processes and gender relationships visible to planners and policy makers working at all levels.
The immediate objectives of the project were to (a) increase rural men's and women's participation in the planning and policy formulation process that was on-going in Namibia; (b) increase information on men's and women's different needs, constraints, and priorities for each of Namibia's unique farming systems; (c) raise awareness of gender issues in agriculture among Ministry staff; and (d) assist the Ministry to formulate gender-responsive agricultural development policy, strategies and programmes.
The project would start off with participatory rural appraisals in the four agro-ecological regions of Namibia. The information from the PRAs would be analysed and written up into regional reports on gender issues in agriculture. Filming of the PRAs would take place in order to produce a documentary on gender roles in agriculture and livestock production in Namibia which could be used for future training purposes and for sensitisation of policy makers. A series of regional workshops would then be held for Ministry staff, NGOs and others working in the agricultural and rural development sector to discuss the findings of the PRAs and develop regionally based strategies for gender-responsive agricultural development. The last activity would be a national workshop to disseminate the research results, discuss the proposals from the regional workshops and generate additional inputs for the elaboration of an Action Plan for Gender-Responsive Agricultural Development in Namibia.
Because implementation of the two projects would overlap, the workplans for the two projects were developed to be mutually reinforcing and to make the best use of limited project funds12. Since PRA was a component in both projects, it was decided to combine the participatory research activities. The second project would thus take advantage of the fact that a group of agricultural extension personnel had just been trained in PRA under TCP/NAM/4451 by forming these trainees into teams which could carry out the proposed PRA research. The table below outlines the basic framework of each project and the linkages between the two.
Project Profile and Linkages
TCP/NAM/4451 |
GCP/INT/602/NOR | |
Title |
"Training for Integration of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development" (June 1994 - June 1996 ) |
"Improving Information on Women's Contribution to Agricultural Production for Gender-Sensitive Planning" (November 1994 - June 1997) |
Budget |
US$115,000 |
US$125,000 |
Counterpart Institution |
Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development |
Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development |
Expected outputs |
· core group of trainers trained in the analysis of difference for agricultural extension and participatory training techniques · training case studies (1 per extension region) on gender issues in Namibian farming systems · all agricultural extension technicians trained by core group in the analysis of difference |
· four regional reports (1 per extension region) on gender issues in Namibian farming systems · a video film documenting above findings · management and supervisory staff sensitised in the use of gender sensitive participatory approaches · action plan for gender-responsive agricultural policy and programmes |
Main activities |
· needs assessment of extension services and research to develop two training case studies for TOT activities · 1st training of trainers workshop in the analysis of difference and PRA · sensitisation workshop for extension supervisory staff on purpose of PRA · PRA in two or three villages in each of Namibia's four extension regions · 2nd TOT to analyse PRA results and prepare training case studies; skills enhancement in participatory training techniques · 3rd TOT to consolidate training skills in the analysis of difference for agricultural extension and prepare for regional workshops · 5 regional GA workshops conducted by core group of trainers to train other agricultural extension technicians |
· Backstopping of PRA activities by NGO and University of Namibia researchers, filming of PRA exercises · Analysis of results and preparation of regional reports by staff from the University of Namibia's Gender Programme · Preparation of film documentary on gender issues in agriculture · Regional-level workshops on gender-responsive agricultural policy · National Workshop on Gender- Responsive Agricultural Policy · Sensitisation workshop for Senior level MAWRD management in the analysis of difference framework · Preparation of Action Plan based on inputs from the consultative process |
