The project has proven that the field of agricultural development has a strong need for training in gender-sensitive participatory rural appraisal methods such as PRA and Gender Analysis. This training should raise awareness of the importance of participatory and gender-sensitive needs assessment and agricultural planning.
Experience and practice in participatory methods applied in this project, which were considered appropriate by the staff who have participated in the fieldwork, could be recommended for application by other development practitioners. Composition of teams with a multi-disciplinary background to conduct further GA/PRA exercises in at least one district in each region would be an essential follow up in each of the 25 regions of the country.
In the short term, the following measures are needed: documentation and recognition of women's roles in agriculture; redirection of policies to provide women with greater access to productive resources, and strengthening of agricultural statistics and indicators. In the long term, measures are needed that enable rural women to acquire greater access to political power and the legislative process and that support rural women in increasing their control over productive resources.
