Policy-making and planning for agriculture and rural development often fail to address adequately men's and women's different roles and needs. A number of issues illustrate how the human factor has often been overlooked by policy-makers and agricultural development planners. One of these issues is the lack of gender-specific information about men's and women's roles in achieving food security and agricultural development, and particularly about women's contributions. There is also a trend to rely on analytic approaches that emphasize increasing production, mainly of cash crops, without considering the socio-economic and gender implications. Development policy-making processes are now undergoing a transformation to promote greater stakeholder participation in planning and decision-making at all levels, expand the role of the private sector and increase the decentralization of decision-making. This transformation will require more accurate and systematic statistics on rural women and men producers, as well as their greater participation so that their voices can be heard.

A key issue is thus the collection, analysis and dissemination of gender-disaggregated data and information, as recommended in the Strategy for Action (Equal Opportunities and Food Security: The Role of Information, FAO, Rome, 2000) of the High-Level Consultation on Rural Women and Information that FAO convened in 1999. This meeting stressed the need to enhance the production and dissemination of information on rural women in order to improve the understanding of their role in social, cultural and economic development and to develop better gender-balanced policies.

Participation is an essential ingredient of gender-responsive, participatory rural and agricultural development policies. Rural women and men need to be empowered so that they can take development into their own hands. Capacity still needs to be built as the fundamental basis for their full participation in all spheres of society (economic, political, social, cultural), at the community, national and international levels.

The information gap

During the last 20 years, the information on rural women has increased significantly, but its validity, relevance and usefulness in decision-making and planning are still questioned - partly because it is often not sufficiently substantiated by reliable statistics. Gender-related information also suffers from weak dissemination and a lack of real awareness of the target audience. It is seldom used to elaborate agricultural policies.

For example, nearly half of a sample of 93 national agricultural censuses conducted worldwide between 1989 and 1999 did not include information on female-headed holdings. However, census data from surveys conducted in several developing regions indicate that one out of five farms is headed by a woman. It is recognized that this figure underestimates the proportion of farms that are owned or managed by women. The legally recognized male head of household is often assumed to be the head of holding as well, even when women are responsible for the day-to-day work and decisions of running the farm.

One reason for women's work remaining largely invisible in statistics is that a great deal of it takes place outside the formal economy. Much of women's work is unrecognized because the informal sector (both within and outside agriculture) is frequently considered to be a «residual» category, which does not contribute significant output to national economies.

Informal occupations provide the livelihoods (paid or otherwise) of more than 80 percent of women in low-income countries and 40 percent of those in middle-income countries. Together, these countries account for 85 percent of the world's population. Studies in nine developing countries found that women spend only 34 percent of their time on market and 66 percent on non-market work. Men, on the other hand, devote an average of 76 percent of their time to market work.

Obtaining data that adequately reflect the importance of women's work requires methods that recognize the value and time consumption of women's productive and reproductive activities, both paid and unpaid.

As political and economic liberalization processes create new challenges, it will be of the utmost importance to make statistics available to a wider variety of users. Such greater availability of data will help to empower rural women and men through better knowledge, greater representation of their interests and more opportunities for collective action for development.

The importance of this issue was raised during the High Level Consultation on Rural Women and Information, organized by FAO in 1999. This meeting had stressed the need to improve the production and dissemination of information on rural women in order to better understand their role in Social, Cultural and Economic Development, and to formulate more gender equality focused policies.

Analytical framework

Only gender mainstreaming can ensure that attention to gender equality is a central part of all agriculture and rural development interventions in areas such as research, policy advice and legislation, as well as in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects.

Gender mainstreaming requires an analytic approach that takes into account the linkages among different social and economic activities, as well as the differences in the ways that men and women in socio-economic groups are involved and affected. The Socio-Economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) approach provides a framework for incorporating these considerations into development projects, programmes and policies.

Participation and empowerment

Improving the collection and analysis of data about the division of labour and responsibilities between rural men and women can help shape more effective and equitable policies. However, better numbers alone will not ensure that policies and programmes address the needs and priorities of men and women farmers. For that to happen, policies must be shaped by rural people's own understanding of the problems they face and the strategies that will eliminate those problems. Involving rural women and men in analysis and planning is essential.

The term «participation» is open to very broad interpretation - even within a single agricultural planning process, different stakeholders may give it different definitions. Participation does not always involve all stakeholders, and may be limited to certain groups within a community. According to an FAO study, it can take place at a number of different levels:

• It may be limited to elite groups only (mostly elected representatives).
• People may be asked to legitimize or ratify projects that have been identified and formulated by government, but do not participate in the detailed planning and management of the project.
• People may be consulted from the very start and take an active part in the planning and management of projects.
• Different social and occupational groups may be represented in all the planning, coordination and evaluation mechanisms at all levels, including the highest policy-making level.
• Representatives of these groups may control the decisions at all levels.

For the last decade, the concepts of gender and participation have been used increasingly in development processes around the world. Each has generated new ways of thinking and working and, as a result, there is now a wealth of literature and a vast array of methods aimed at achieving the goals of social inclusion and empowerment. One of the methods used is participatory rural appraisal (PRA).

PRA draws on the knowledge and experience of women and men at the village level, using tools that facilitate research and action that are managed by the local community. The method is a good way of involving communities in information generation, analysis and planning. Specific tools, such as seasonal calendars, daily activity profiles, farming system diagrams and household and village resource maps, can be combined with gender analysis to study the livelihood systems of different socio-economic groups. Other tools help different socio-economic and gender-based focus groups to identify and prioritize their problems and resource needs and to develop group or community action plans.

Participatory approaches empower local men and women with the skills and confidence to analyse their situations, reach consensus, make decisions and take actions that will improve their circumstances.

However, the concept of empowerment (see glossary) goes beyond participation. It is more than simply involving more people in decision-making. It implies enabling people to understand the reality of their situation, reflect on the factors shaping that situation and, most important, take steps to change and improve it. Empowerment of women implies «adding to women's power». An empowerment focus involves the radical alteration of the structures that reinforce women's subordinate position as a gender.

However, empowerment that is not also concerned with equity would help men rather than women, the better-off rather than the worse-off, and members of higher-status groups rather than those of lower-status groups. The challenge is to create a process in which the weaker are empowered and equity is increased. A wide range of development organizations, including UN agencies and NGOs, have established women's empowerment as a policy goal by supporting such activities as microcredit programmes, political participation and leadership training. Many agencies have also developed indicators of empowerment and participatory evaluation to measure the success in advancing gender equality.

The Grameen Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, for example, use eight indicators to measure women's empowerment, including: mobility, economic security, involvement in major household decisions, political and legal awareness, and involvement in political campaigns.