January 2005

Gender concerns in agricultural census in Africa

by Diana Tempelman
and Naman Keita
FAO Regional Office for Africa

This paper was presented at the third International Conference on Agricultural Statistics, “Measuring Sustainable Agricultural Indicators” 2 – 4 November 2004, Cancun, Mexico

There is a general lack of gender specific data relevant to the agricultural sector. In many countries, past policies for agricultural development often narrowly aimed at product growth, overlooking the importance of human resources as well as the social and welfare aspects of development. This may well have contributed to the weakness of data related to these aspects in agricultural statistics until the late eighties. The “Rome Declaration” adopted by the World Conference on Food Security, November 1996, acknowledged the fundamental contribution of women in achieving sustainable food security for all and in this context, recommended improving the collection, dissemination and use of gender-disaggregated data in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and rural development. However, there are other reasons for increased demand for socio-economic and gender disaggregated data, notably in support of:

governments’ changing role from central decision-maker to facilitator of involvement of decentralised / sub-national bodies and the private sector in the planning and implementation of agricultural development; and
the planning of responses to relatively recent emergencies, like increasing poverty, food insecurity, feminisation of the agricultural sector and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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