The lessons learned are presented according to the six inter-related issues specified by the workshop, From Farmer to Planner and Back-Harvesting Best Practices. The issues are entry point, tools and methods, capacity building, gender information, linkages and institutionalisation. These issues and subsequent lessons learned will be defined within the context of the project presented in this case study.
How to start a participatory process: Although this project was concerned with participatory planning, the entry point was, nevertheless, at ministerial level. From there, it went down to the regional and district levels. Village leaders and residents were usually only informed of the PRA field-work a couple of weeks before it was to begin. Overall there was a feeling that, until a gender-responsive PRA approach becomes a fully integrated approach applied by local government staff, NGOs and other community-based institutions on rural planning and development, outside initiative will be needed to introduce a participatory process.
This has implications for all levels. At policy level, there is a need to initiate capacity building and to provide resources. At farmer level, in order to have implementation in the field, various tools for the collection of information, analysis and utilisation need to be introduced. Government staff still plays a key role in organizing and supervising development work from village to national level. Governmental advocacy of change is needed, because the farmers will not adopt most changes unless they are strongly supported by the government.
Separating the community into men's and women's focus groups: One purpose of the participatory planning process was to assure that women had a voice in the planning process. For this reason, the community was divided into men's and women's focus groups to create an environment where women could both participate in the exercise and express themselves freely. This focus on separate groups of men and women farmers within each community was a key entry point within the framework of a bottom-up planning process.
Summary of lessons learned about entry point
· Outside initiative will be needed to introduce a participatory process, until gender-responsive PRA becomes fully integrated and is applied by local governments, NGOs and community-based institutions dealing with rural planning and development.
· Farmers will not adopt most changes unless they are supported by the government, thus governmental advocacy of change is needed.
· Separate focus groups are needed for men and women, to give women the opportunity to participate and express themselves freely.
The project used a combination of gender analysis and PRA techniques to learn about and document gender issues in agriculture and to facilitate the participation of rural women and men in needs-based agricultural planning. The specific PRA tools used and their purpose are found in the table below.
S.N |
Name of tools |
Purpose |
1. |
Community resource maps |
· indicate spatial distribution of roads, forests, water resources, institutions, organizations · identify number of households, their ethnic composition and other socio-economic characteristics/variables |
2. |
Seasonal calendar |
· assess seasonal workloads of women and men · learn cropping patterns, farming systems, gender division of labour, food scarcity, climatic conditions, etc. |
3. |
Wealth ranking |
· understand local people's criteria of wealth · identify relative wealth and the different socio-economic characteristics of households and classes |
4. |
Transect walks |
· organize and refine spatial information · summarise local conditions |
5. |
Gender resource maps |
· indicate access to and control over private, community and public resources by gender |
6. |
Historical profiles, time and trend lines |
· to learn community perceptions of change in local situation |
7. |
Decision-making matrix |
· understand decision-making on farming practices by gender |
8. |
Venn diagram |
· identify key actors and establish the relationships between the village and local people |
9. |
Problem ranking |
· identify and prioritise problems as experienced by men and women |
10. |
Semi-structured interviews |
· probe key questions and follow-up topics raised by other tools |
11. |
Focus group interviews |
· probe key questions and follow-up topics raised by other tools |
12. |
Community action plan |
· assess the extent to which women's voices are respected when men and women sit together to identify solutions for the problems prioritised by the latter · understand development alternatives and options, and give opportunity to men and women to learn from each other's experiences and knowledge |
The gender analysis and PRA methods used by the project have their strengths and weaknesses: on the positive side, there is a high level of community participation and flexibility; on the negative side, even though there is a broad sampling with purposive selection, there are questions about the statistical validity of the data gleaned from such informal methods. These issues are explored at greater length below.
Community Participation: PRA has a high degree of community participation compared to other approaches. In addition to the initial meeting with the whole village, selected households in all communities were engaged throughout the exercise and in all aspects of the study. The PRA also raised people's self-awareness and encouraged them to suggest viable solutions to their problems. Practical solutions included constructing new wells, enforcing village by-laws on rampant grazing by livestock, soliciting more land from underutilised state farms, and demanding affordable prices or packaging of inputs.
In addition, PRA facilitated the analysis of complex issues and problems, and solutions were provided by the community itself. Examples of complex problems were: the choice between using expensive artificial fertilisers or shifting to more affordable organic farmyard manure; whether to discipline corrupt health staff through dismissals, reprimands or disciplinary measures; and whether the government should or should not intervene on prices and provision of agricultural inputs.
Gender Analysis: Tools and methods used for gender analysis included: analysis of gender roles; analysis of access to and control of resources; assessment of gender needs met and gender needs not met; the analysis of gender inequality; the analysis of levels of causes for gender inequality; and the Gender Equality and Empowerment Framework which enabled most participants to visualise the different levels of gender equality and empowerment which various activities either provided or denied to women and some of the men.
Gender analysis was further integrated in the PRA fieldwork by assuring that there were equal numbers of male and female key informers. However, most respondents in the in-depth household interviews were women, since they were more available in the households.
The experiences also proved that gender analysis is flexible. Its techniques and tools can be adapted and integrated into most other research approaches. Gender analysis not only permits diagnosis of social relationships between men and women and their eventual implications, it also enables the observation of constraints and opportunities for men and women in their respective development activities, i.e. division of labour, time, access to formal credit facilities, access to training, and access to skills and productive resources. Gender analysis could be easily integrated into such activities as: discussions in which male and female focus groups identify and prioritise their perceptions of problems, causes and solutions; gender resource mapping with gender-specific identification of who has control, access and provides labour for different items on a farm; and creating a gender-disaggregated seasonal activities calendar that provides information on who actually participates in what activity during which season.
Statisticians´ concerns: PRA and Gender Analysis were the main methods used in the exercise. There was concern from some members of the national-level professional staff about the statistical validity of the findings and the consequences if these were to be translated into planning. Issues in question include random sampling, shunning of formal structured questionnaires, inaccurate measurements of sizes and distances, absence of an exhaustive statistical analysis, and the apparent trend of generalising information drawn from a few villages.
In addition to PRA and GA tools, household interviews and individual observations were used to collect information. However, the absence of a formal questionnaire or checklist created considerable difficulties in the organization of the information afterwards. Considering that the main objective of the exercise was to improve information on women's contribution, the need for a checklist was apparent.
The sampling frame included heads of households with a distinction made between male/female-headed households. Sampling was done through wealth ranking on the basis of socio-economic resources. This was followed by purposive selection from three socio-economic resource categories, including 10 percent from high, 30 percent from middle and 60 percent from low. This approach increased the statistical validity of the village samples.
Summary of lessons learned about tools and methods
· PRA has a high degree of community participation. It raises people's self-awareness and encourages problem analysis and looking for solutions.
· The techniques and tools of gender analysis are flexible, which allows it to be adapted and used in many research and data collection efforts.
· The organization of information gathered through PRA and Gender Analysis would have been easier with a checklist.
· Using a purposive selection in the sampling frame, divided among socio-economic groups, improves the statistical validity of the information gathered from the villages.
The main objective of the project was to strengthen the capacity of the staff members of the Ministries of Agriculture in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar to learn from women farmers and incorporate their needs in agricultural planning. This was to be accomplished by training select government staff in gender analysis and PRA. Government personnel at national, regional and district levels, key actors in the participatory planning process, benefited from the vertical capacity building component of the project. They participated in theoretical and practical training on Gender Analysis and PRA.
PRA as a learning process for all: More than 230 farmers participated in the GA/PRA fieldwork. The reaction of the farmers to the problem analysis/solving at village level varied. Some farmers recognised its empowerment benefits in terms of taking control of their own lives. Others tried to utilise the approach to demand control over the process. A third reaction was indifference to the participatory planning process. Farmers could freely express their opinions to district staff who were members of the field teams, and to planners and policy-makers who were part of the teams or who visited the villages during presentations of community action plans at the end of the PRA.
Gender training: Senior-level decision-makers and planners from the Ministry of Agriculture participated in gender training. The objective was to sensitise them to the need for understanding the gender-differentiated needs of farmers when allocating resources to the agricultural sector. This understanding, based on an analysis of gender roles in various farming systems, would create support for gender-sensitive and participatory agricultural planning.
Information collection and dissemination: During the regional and national workshops, field findings were disseminated. Activities were suggested for improvement of collection, analysis and dissemination of gender-disaggregated information. Emphasis was on the need for and use of gender-disaggregated data in agriculture. Because most data producers are oblivious to gender issues, there is a scarcity of gender-disaggregated data in almost all sectors (exceptions are health and education). During the workshops it was underlined that most producers of statistics are unaware of and insensitive to gender issues, because they did not receive training in gender analysis. Representatives from NGOs, farming communities and regional government organizations discussed and proposed alternative arrangements for better collection and dissemination of gender-disaggregated information.
Summary of lessons learned about capacity building
· Not all farmers react in the same way to the idea of participatory planning and empowerment. Some are interested in having control over their own lives, others are anxious to control the participatory process, and others are indifferent.
· The capacity does exist at village level to identify and analyse problems and plan activities to overcome the constraints.
· Giving training to senior-level decision-makers that sensitises them to gender issues encourages them, in turn, to support gender-sensitive and participatory agricultural planning.
· Most data producers are oblivious to gender issues. They need training in gender analysis to encourage them to collect and use gender-disaggregated data.
The PRAs generated a wealth of detailed information on men's and women's differing activities, access to resources, mobility, perception of institutions, and priorities. In many ways, the findings from the eight PRAs verified much of the research on gender-based differences in agriculture, e.g. that women are the main agricultural producers. A summary of the key PRA findings and some select graphics is presented in Annex 3.
The information collected focused on disparities between women and men as regards gender roles in agriculture, access to and control over resources, and the numerous unmet needs of women farmers as compared to men.
One is the glaring gap found in all study areas between the important role of women in agriculture and their limited access to extension services. The GA/PRA revealed that 80 percent of rural women have no contact with agricultural extension officers.
Another discrepancy is that although nearly 80 percent of women are dependent on farming for their main income, women farmers face major constraints in their access to agricultural inputs and resources:
· women have a constrained access to land, most women acquire ownership through inheritance;
· 60 to 80 percent of the women farmers have no access to either formal or informal sources of credit;
· 83 percent of the women farmers use seeds from previous harvests;
· use of fertiliser by rural women is limited because they cannot afford it and/or it is not available; and
· women own inadequate equipment and technology (almost 60 percent have hand hoes, and 40 percent have machetes, hand hoes and axes as their main farming tools).
Prioritisation of Problems by Women in Dodoma Rural District
Women's Priorities |
Problems |
First |
Crop pests |
Second |
Low income |
Third |
Health problems |
Fourth |
Poor marketing possibilities and low agricultural prices |
Female Headed Households: In the PRA districts of the Tanzania Mainland, the percentage of female heads of households was high: in Mbeya it was 30 percent and in Dodoma it was 33 percent. This is much higher than the national average of 17.5 percent. This indicates that the national statistics probably use the de facto definition for FHH, while the PRA research used the de jure definition, including widows, single mothers, divorcees and separated women.
Gender division of labour: Women in Dodoma Rural seemed to perform nearly all of the main activities involved in production of their main food and cash crops. An average 69 percent of the women participated in all stages of agricultural production, while 25 percent of the men participated.
Decision-making: Women appeared to participate actively in decision-making on a range of issues. For example in Dodoma, women participated in decisions on types of crop to grow, where to plant, what techniques to use and how to distribute income from sale of crops. Women also had a part in determining if money should be borrowed, livestock or poultry should be sold, surplus crops needed to be retailed, and how to distribute income accrued from sale of livestock. Most decisions were made jointly with men, although fewer men were involved in decisions on distribution of income from sale of livestock, whether money should be borrowed and on sale of surplus livestock.
Summary of lessons learned about gender information
· There is a gap between the important role played by women in agriculture and their limited access to extension services.
· Women farmers do not have sufficient access to agricultural inputs and resources.
· The PRA research indicated that the percentage of female headed households was much higher than the national statistics indicated, probably because PRA research used a definition which includes widows, single mothers, divorcees and separated women.
· Women participate actively in decision-making on a range of issues and often, but not always, those decisions are made jointly with men.
Linking farmers and planners: A strong link was established during the GA/PRA fieldwork between women and men farmers on the one hand, and agricultural planners and policy-makers on the other hand. During the fieldwork government staff came face to face with more than 200 farmers in a manner which was new to most. At the village level, farmers formulated Community Action Plans which they presented to the government staff. These plans detailed problems identified and analysed by women and men farmers, but also contained actions for overcoming some of the identified problems. It was an important lesson learned for both village members and government staff that the capacity exists at village level to identify and analyse problems and plan activities to overcome the constraints.
Cross-sectoral linkages: Many cross-sectoral linkages were established during the course of the project. Linkages were built among the Ministries of Agriculture from the Mainland and Zanzibar and other government agencies including: community development offices, district councils, Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Planning Commission and the Vice President's Office Directorate of Environment. Linkages were also established with various NGOs and research institutions, such as Sokoine University of Agriculture and the Institute of Development Studies.
Extension Officers: Potential linkages are expected to be established by the extension officers. The new agricultural policy considers extension staff a strong link between farmers, livestock keepers and research. The new policy aims at strengthening village extension officers' roles in distribution of inputs, credit handling and enforcement of by-laws. The policy further wants the extension services to focus on supporting farm families, especially women and youth groups in establishing feasible income-generating activities.
Summary of lessons learned about linkages
· A strong link was established between the women and men farmers and the agricultural planners and policy makers during the GA/PRA field-work.
· Many cross-sectoral linkages were established between the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and other ministries, research institutes and NGOs.
Enabling environment: Training government staff of various levels in methods such as GA and PRA created an enabling environment for mainstreaming gender-responsive participatory approaches to agricultural development and planning.
Awareness-raising: There is an increased understanding of the importance of participatory and gender-sensitive needs assessment and planning. This increased awareness comes from staff members who had participated in practice with the methods in the field, and also through the dissemination of GA/PRA fieldwork findings to various staff members in the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.
Multi-disciplines: Bringing groups of various disciplines together to conduct further PRA exercises is beneficial to a broad institutionalisation, especially if they identify gender issues in their own research programmes or extension work which they would like to address as a follow-up to the GA/PRA fieldwork.
Regional workshops: Several measures to institutionalise gender-responsive participatory agricultural planning were recommended by regional workshops:
· creation of gender-disaggregated data banks at all levels;
· establishment of data collection mechanisms by emphasising and promoting GA/PRA in combination with other research methodologies;
· establishment of an inventory of available expertise in PRA and gender analysis; and
· development of training packages on socio-economic and gender analysis training.
Ministerial level: Participants of the gender training recommended that each technical department assign one staff member who would ensure that gender issues are incorporated into the programmes prepared by different departments within the ministry.
Cross-sectoral level: Institutionalisation was suggested in the form of:
· NGOs and community development organizations participating in collection and dissemination of gender-disaggregated information;
· formation of multi-disciplinary teams on gender and development; and
· establishment of coordinating committees to advance and monitor the mainstreaming of gender into agricultural plans and programmes.
Summary of lessons learned about institutionalisation
· Training governmental staff of various levels in methods such as GA and PRA creates an enabling environment to initiate mainstreaming of gender-responsive participatory approaches to agricultural development and planning.
· Multi-disciplinary PRA field exercises can broaden institutionalisation, allowing participants to identify gender issues in their own work which they can address as a follow-up to the fieldwork.
