Building Capacity of Agriculture Extension Departments: Regional Training on Delivering Gender Sensitive Rural Advisory Services

ACCRA, GHANA – From May 20 to 22, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) co-hosted a regional training workshop in Accra under the Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP). The event brought together agricultural extension stakeholders from eight West and Central African countries (Benin, Mali, Niger, Togo, Chad, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal) to advance gender equality in rural advisory services, an essential but often overlooked component in building resilient food systems.

FSRP is a flagship regional investment programme that seeks to strengthen the resilience of West Africa’s food system through a strategic regional approach. CORAF leads on sustainability and adaptability of the food system’s productive base, focusing on agroecological practices and sustainable land and watershed management. Gender-focused interventions are embedded within this framework to help close persistent gender gaps that hinder food security and rural development. FAO has collaborated with CORAF providing technical support, including methodologies, tools and capacity building trainings on gender mainstreaming since 2023. The current training on Gender Sensitive Rural Advisory Services is the latest output of the series of collaborations between FAO and CORAF under the FSRP.

Why Closing the Gender Gap Is Essential

Women make up of about 50 percent of farmers in West and Central Africa and 60 percent of those employed in off-farm segments of agrifood systems, but few women farmers than men are reached by rural advisory services designed to support farmers. Most agriculture extension systems continue to cater primarily to men due to several systemic problems. Extension service providers fail to view women as clients of rural advisory services, and farmers in their own rights, regarding them instead as farm helpers. The services they deliver do not taken account of the challenge’s that rural women often face, including the burden of unpaid care and domestic work, limited mobility, low literacy levels, and restrictive social norms.

“These inequalities have grown along the agricultural value chain, particularly with respect to access to essential inputs, advisory services, and technology,” said Dr. Mariame Maiga, Regional Gender Advisor for CORAF.

The consequences are measurable: farms managed by women are on average 24 percent less productive than those managed by men according to the Status of Women in Agrifood Systems report produced by FAO in 2024. In some instances, the figure can be as high as 66% in Niger and 46% in Northern Nigeria as the Living Standard Measurement survey indicates. Bridging the gender productivity gap could boost agricultural production by up to 4 percent and significantly enhance household welfare and food security.

“We need to build the capacity of agriculture extension systems to provide gender sensitive services and close the gender gap,” Dr. Maiga added. “We also need to identify and promote gender-responsive agriculture technologies, ensuring our communication and training approaches target and support women and youth to have access to technologies that enhance productivity.”

Addressing Structural Barriers and Driving Change

The training delivered by Bethel Terefe Gebremedhin, Senior Gender Expert at FAO Africa Regional office in Ghana, focused on identifying structural barriers to women’s access to agriculture advisory services and exploring strategies to overcome them. Using tools like the Seasonal Calendars and Daily Activity Profile, participants conducted situational analyses in their home countries. A common trend emerged: extension services often target men as heads of households and landowners, excluding women from training even though a significant amount of agricultural production activities is carried out by women. The exercises also showed that women work longer hours on productive and unpaid care work activities with limited time for rest and leisure compared to men. The exercise showed to the participants the time poverty that women have, the importance of addressing the burden of unpaid care work by introducing time and labor-saving technologies and the need for encouraging the redistribution of care work within the household. Most importantly, it showed the need for extension advisory services to be organized taking account of women’s unpaid care work responsibilities.

Dr. KyKy Ganyo, Assistant to the Coordinator for FSRP-CORAF, emphasized one key systemic flaw: “The low number of women extension officers across the continent is troubling.” Increasing women’s representation in these roles is critical for more inclusive outreach. This in turn requires improving gender sensitivity with agriculture extension departments to attract and retain women extension agents.

Understanding the problem is the first step toward finding a solution, and that was the true value of this training. “I came to this training with doubts and apprehension, but after three days, I feel completely renewed and changed,” reflected Mr. Bawa Gaoh Ousmane, Director General of the Agency for the Promotion of Agricultural Advisory Services at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Niger. He expressed a strong commitment to incorporating the lessons learned into future projects and policies.

Mainstreaming Gender in Advisory Services

A significant focus of the workshop was designing gender-sensitive advisory services across the agricultural value chain, from inputs to production, processing, and marketing. Participants compared traditional value chain analysis with gender-aware approaches that consider women’s access to credit, market information, training, and decision-making power.

“Delivering gender sensitive rural advisory services is critical for improving productivity and production. Ensuring the participation and empowerment of women in agrifood systems is also key for improving food security and nutrition at the household level,” said Bethel Terefe. “It is important for us to take into consideration the gender dimension and mainstream gender in our approaches in programmes, policies, and provision of essential agricultural services.”

Participants developed action plans to strengthen gender mainstreaming in agriculture extension departments in their respective countries and created indicators to monitor progress. “Gender is not an emotional issue. It is a social reality we must acknowledge and address,” said Moumini Savadogo, Executive Director of CORAF. “As you leave this training, we hope you become ambassadors not only for gender equality and social equity, but also for building collaborative partnerships across institutions and agencies to drive meaningful change.”

As FAO and CORAF continue their collaboration under the FSRP, the message from this training is clear: rural advisory systems must work for women if they are to work for all. By empowering rural women, we can build more resilient, productive, and equitable food systems in West Africa.