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Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetSupporting gender sensitive service provision: FAO’s Gender and Rural Advisory Services Assessment Tool 2016
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No results found.Rural advisory services (RAS) can help women and men farmers to increase their yields, connect with markets, and take advantage of agripreneurship opportunities. Yet, globally, women have less access to RAS than men, and the information, technologies and services provided tend to be less relevant to the needs of female farmers. To help organizations reflect on and improve their service provision for women, FAO has developed the Gender and Rural Advisory Services Assessment Tool (GRAST), which as sesses the gender-sensitivity of RAS programs at the enabling environment, organizational, and individual (advisor and client) levels. This tool gives to RAS organizations and institutions a way to identify concretely the strengths and weaknesses of a program from a gender perspective. This can be a basis for implementing institutional reforms to improve gender equity, as well as a means to share good practices and lessons learned within the organization and with others. The GRAST can be used to assess all types of advisory service programs, including those focusing on business development and agripreneurship. The side event is hosted jointly by FAO and INGENAES (Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agriculture Extension Services), a USAID-funded consortium of universities and institutions, has been collaborating with FAO to test and validate the GRAST in Bangladesh, with a particularly focus on the organizational level of the tool. The side event will introduce participants to t he GRAST and, through presentations and discussions, it will provide an overview on how the tool can be used. The event will also focus on sharing preliminary results and lessons learned from the GRAST validation case studies carried out in Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh and Peru. -
Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetMaking extension and advisory services work for youth 2022
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No results found.The global youth population has reached the unprecedented figure of 1.2 billion. This exceptional number has enormous potential: with farming populations ageing across the world, the agricultural sector needs to attract youth to ensure generational turnover and foster competitiveness. With their energy, ability to learn and innovative attitudes, youth can accelerate the transition to more sustainable agrifood systems that can feed the world’s growing population. For this to happen, important push factors are needed, including education and skills, access to productive resources and services (especially land, finance, and business development services), connectivity, and youth agency. But more is needed. Rural youth often operate in contexts where decent employment and entrepreneurial opportunities remain limited. Pull factors are thus also essential: private sector development, more demand for youth labour and products in value chains, improved working conditions and business enabling environments in rural areas. Integrated, multi-stakeholder approaches are needed to empower youth within agrifood systems. In this regard, extension and advisory services (EAS) are key, not only to enhance skills and access to information and support, but also to facilitate innovation, and act as brokers of employment opportunities in rural areas. Sadly, most EAS providers are not prepared for these tasks. Their design and delivery results in them reaching mostly wealthier and already established farmers. While public EAS providers are often short of resources, private providers may be less interested in serving youth, who are often perceived as a more ‘risky’ clientele. The advice EAS offer is neither tailored nor provided in youth-friendly formats. Which is why youth must be involved in EAS not only as clients, but also as providers. -
Book (stand-alone)Towards inclusive Pluralistic Service Systems
Insights for innovative thinking
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No results found.A growing variety of public and private rural advisory services are available today, leading to increasingly pluralistic service systems (PSS) – in which advisory services are provided by different actors and funded from different sources. PSS have emerged in many countries as a response to a decline in public sector extension and the increasing demand for tailored, diverse and market-oriented services. Private companies, non-governmental organizations and producer organizations, today play mor e active roles alongside traditional public sector providers. The diversity of service providers in PSS has the potential to make services more inclusive, responsive to demand, context-specific and based on multiple knowledge sources. This is particularly relevant, as farmers are highly diverse, differing in resources, gender, market access, crops and livestock systems, and therefore require different types of information and services to achieve sustainable productivity growth and better livelih oods. Based on extensive literature review, the paper provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on “inclusive pluralistic service systems”, examining the need for demand-driven service provision, the diverse providers and approaches to service delivery, and the policy considerations and institutional challenges constraining the operation of inclusive PSS.
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