LESSONS FROM TANZANIA

Dar es Salaam and Rome, November 1997

This case study was written by Edward Mhina a gender analysis trainer and national researcher for project GCP/URT/108/NOR, "Improving Information on Women's Contribution to Agricultural Production for Gender-Sensitive Planning". The original language version of the document was edited by Eva Jordans and Nancy Hart.

The opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

PREFACE

This case study was prepared under the auspices of a Government of Norway funded inter-regional project entitled "Improving Information on Women's Contribution to Agricultural Production for Gender-Sensitive Planning" (GCP/INT/602/NOR) which was implemented in Namibia, Tanzania and Nepal between 1995 and 1997. It is one of a series of background papers being prepared for a "Workshop on Gender and Participation in Agricultural Development Planning - Harvesting Best Practices" to be held in Rome in December 1997. The Workshop will provide the opportunity to bring together nationals from a number of countries where FAO has tried to assist institutions and communities to support planning processes which are participatory and that address the different needs and priorities of rural women and men. The objectives of this workshop are to:

· compare and share experiences from different countries and thereby build capacity among institutions and organizations working in the agricultural sector to use participatory and gender-sensitive approaches in agricultural planning;

· from this shared experience, potentially develop a framework or model for gender-responsive participatory agricultural development planning;

· share what was learned from this field experience with interested FAO technical divisions and explore linkages with complementary FAO programmes, such as the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) and the Socio-Economic and Gender Analysis Programme (SEAGA).

It is hoped that this case study will be of interest to others working on programmes and projects - particularly those in Tanzania - which seek effective ways to include rural women, their experience and their priorities in agricultural planning processes.

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FHH	Female-Headed Household
GA	Gender Analysis
NGO	Non-Governmental Organization
PRA	Participatory Rural Appraisal
SEAGA	Socio-Economic and Gender Analysis Programme
SPFS	Special Programme for Food Security

I. Introduction

This case study follows the Tanzanian project "Improving Information on Women's Contribution to Agricultural Production for Gender-Sensitive Planning". It presents the methodology utilised in Tanzania for training and for collecting information through gender-sensitive participatory diagnostic research on women in agriculture. The case study gives an overview of the training in PRA and Gender Analysis, the process of analysing the findings from the eight villages where the practical exercises were performed, and touches on the recommendations for conducting further activities in Tanzania. This project focused on planning, participation and gender. Planning and participation in the sense that rural women and men were actively involved in participatory planning exercises (using PRA) to collect information about their agricultural development needs. Gender in the sense of ensuring that both men and women had a voice in the planning exercise and that both men's and women's needs were recognised and district-level planners and extension staff, who are in a position to respond to the farmers' needs, participated in the process.

As a pilot exercise, the project was mainly concerned with testing a model for participatory and gender-sensitive planning. Although many projects in Tanzania have focused on capacity-building of government and non-governmental staff in facilitating rural women's access to training, credit or other resources¹, none have been specifically concerned with the agricultural planning process.

The organization of the paper is modelled after others in this series. The case study begins in Section II with background on Tanzania. Section III describes where the project came from and its basic design. Section IV outlines the main events that occurred during implementation. In Section V, we have tried to analyse the experience of the project with respect to several challenges of carrying out participatory processes:

· the entry point, i.e. determining where to start and the implications that has for how to structure and support participatory processes;

· the tools and methods that were used and how they worked in terms of facilitating participation;

· capacity building, i.e. whose capacities were enhanced and what strategies and methods worked best to accomplish that objective;

· gender information, i.e. what new information was gained from the PRAs and how the information was used;

· linkages, i.e. how did the project promote linkages to planning processes, and other similar efforts; and

· institutionalisation, i.e. what changes did or should take place in order to create a more enabling environment for gender-responsive, participatory approaches to agricultural development planning.

The final section highlights some of the main conclusions from the case study.

1 There are a number of projects and programs to support capacity-building of government and non-governmental staff on how to facilitate rural women's access to training, credit and other resources. These are (a) Fifth IFAD Project in Tanzania, (b) the Netherlands-supported WIA, or Women in Irrigated Agriculture and Related Activities which was partially implemented by FAO (GCP/URT/103/NET), (c) SNV-supported Traditional Irrigation Improvement Programme (TIP), (d) agriculture extension support, (e) rural credit support schemes, (f) dairy product development, (g) increasing rural women's food productivity and (h) National Farming System Research Programme.