Community engagement for inclusive rural transformation and gender equality
Community engagement is now recognized as a critical component of international development practice and humanitarian assistance. It facilitates agency and the empowerment of all social groups in rural communities, enhances local participation, sustainability and ownership, and builds upon local resources and capacities, thereby leaving no one behind.
Recognizing the importance of community engagement as a key factor in achieving a world free from hunger and poverty, and as a prerequisite for community-led collective action, FAO organized a series of five webinars between 2020 and 2021 titled ‘Community Engagement Days.’[1] This created a space for academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), development and humanitarian agencies and field development practitioners to come together to explore the concept of community engagement, exchange experiences and good practices as well as challenges and opportunities to bring these approaches at scale.
The webinars provided an opportunity to share research and field experiences across five interlinked themes (gender, resilience, peace, evidence, and collective action), encouraging reflection and dialogue on community engagement strategies, practices and approaches. Nearly 1,000 participants from NGOs, governments, the United Nations (UN), international development organizations, civil society, the private sector, and academia joined the series.
Based on these conversations it became clear that while multiple definitions of community engagement exist – and there is no “one size fits all” – these definitions do share common approaches (community-led, rights-based, gender-responsive/gender-transformative); principles (inclusive, participatory and people-centered, conflict-sensitive) and characteristics (contextual and adaptive, and empowering). The key outcomes of the webinars highlighted the importance of recognizing and challenging power dynamics, integrating reflexivity in research and implementation, prioritizing gender equality, fostering resilience and peace, and supporting collective action. Furthermore, the need for systematic knowledge sharing and creating spaces for ongoing dialogue and peer-to peer learning was emphasized to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of community-driven initiatives.
The Community Engagement Days webinar series was not a standalone initiative but a platform for discussion aimed at exchanging experiences, forging innovative alliances and partnerships to highlight the value of community engagement in both development and humanitarian contexts.
Given the scope of the series, the shared experiences were just a snapshot of existing approaches and practices. To provide an opportunity to expand the audience and hear voices from a variety of actors, the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division of FAO (ESP) initiated this call for submissions and invites stakeholders to share their experiences, good practices and views on community engagement for inclusive rural transformation and gender equality.[2]
This call for submissions is open to individuals and organizations from both the development and humanitarian sectors who have experience implementing community engagement strategies, interventions, approaches/methodologies, or innovations. It also welcomes contributions from a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, education, health, sanitation, civic engagement and others critical to inclusive rural development.
Through this initiative, FAO is eager to hear more, learn, and exchange insights both internally and externally on what interventions and practices have worked and what can be improved in community engagement and community-led collective action to achieve inclusive rural transformation and gender equality. By capturing a diverse range of contributions, FAO aims to promote the adoption and scaling-up of community engagement approaches, address barriers to their implementation and refine these practices to make them more inclusive, effective, and sustainable.
| Please use the submission template in any of the three languages (English, French or Spanish). The background document can serve as a reference for completing the template for submissions. |
The submissions will be publicly available on this webpage and featured in the proceedings report of this call, enhancing the visibility of participants' work and fostering learning, inspiration, and networking among a broader audience. Depending on the relevance and content, FAO may also include contributions in knowledge products such as case studies, compendiums, and reports, and use them to inform its work on community engagement and collective action, with due acknowledgment of the contributions. Beyond this call, the initiative offers participants the potential for continued engagement and collaboration, laying the groundwork for further learning, networking, and community-building.
Criteria for submissions
We are looking for ‘good practices’—tested methods that have proven successful in multiple settings and can be widely adopted. We also consider ‘promising practices’—innovative approaches that have shown success in a specific context and have the potential for broader application but may need more evidence or replication. Both types contribute valuable insights for continuous learning and improvement.
To ensure that relevant experiences are captured, we are looking for practices with the following criteria:
| 1. | Engagement of the community: Interventions should deliberately and actively strive to engage a wide range of segments and groups within the community to ensure inclusivity and broad-based participation, fostering a sense of ownership and collective empowerment among all community members, this should in turn strengthen community-led collective action. This means that they should go beyond merely targeting specific groups or formal structures, such as community-based organizations (farmer organizations, cooperatives, and self-help groups) as entry points. Instead, they should engage diverse groups within the community, fostering inclusivity, collective participation and shared benefits. These interventions promote a collective added value where everyone at the community level, regardless of their direct involvement, can benefit. Ideally, the community itself should be the primary entry point for the intervention, though approaches that indirectly impact the wider community are also welcome if they emphasize community value. Additionally, community-wide interventions do emphasize the participation of groups that are typically left behind. While these interventions are designed to be open to everyone, they are strategically inclusive by deliberately creating spaces and opportunities for marginalized or underserved groups to participate. |
| 2. | Inclusive and gender-responsive/transformative: The intervention should prioritize inclusivity, ensuring active engagement from all segments of the community, regardless of age, ethnicity, disability, gender identity/expression, etc. These efforts acknowledge that gender intersects with various social dimensions and identities, including age, ethnicity, indigeneity, health, psychological resilience, disability, socioeconomic and political status or other characteristics. This intersectionality creates compound inequalities and layers of disadvantage and privilege that the interventions aim to address, promoting greater inclusivity, equality, gender transformative change and positive masculinities.[3] This also involves challenging discriminatory gender social norms and unequal power dynamics and fostering attitudes and behaviors that support gender equality and women’s empowerment. |
| 3. | Rights-based and empowering: The intervention should aim for a process of change over an extended period, rather than relying on short-term or one-off activities such as workshops, trainings or consultations. It should adopt a rights-based approach[4], grounded in the principles of participation, inclusion, accountability, non-discrimination, transparency, human dignity, empowerment and agency. The intervention should position itself at the highest levels of participation (see Figure 1 below), promoting tailored and sustained engagement to achieve long-term impact. By enabling marginalized groups to influence decision-making and enhancing the capacity of individuals as rights holders to know and claim their rights, as well as ensuring that states and public authorities, as duty bearers, fulfill their obligations, accountability, impact, and sustainability can be strengthened. By recognizing and redressing structural inequalities, and by fostering the exchange and development of skills, knowledge, and confidence, community engagement enhances both practical abilities and inner resilience, ultimately contributing to sustainable development. |
| 4. | Self-facilitation and/or participatory facilitation: As a continuous and participatory process the intervention/experience can be self-facilitated by local actors from the outset, embodying bottom-up leadership, or it can be guided by an external facilitator who works closely with the community. The facilitation is focused on enhancing local stakeholders’ empowerment and ensuring their ownership and agency throughout the intervention and beyond (post-project), adopting a forward-looking approach. If the intervention is externally facilitated, facilitators should guide a participatory process that promotes community ownership and autonomy, allowing the intervention to be sustained independently after the project's conclusion. The most effective intervention facilitates the empowerment of the community to take full control, delegating authority, ensuring long-term impact. |
| 5. | Proven implementation: The intervention should either have been implemented or still be ongoing, and should incorporate learning processes throughout its execution. This includes lessons learned and results that can be shared or documented through this call. This knowledge can be generated in various ways, including local and generational knowledge, storytelling, and formal studies or evaluations. The intervention should showcase positive outcomes and lessons learned as well as challenges identified through both traditional and participatory methods. |
While FAO is particularly interested in approaches that specifically meet these criteria, we also recognize the value of methods used at specific phases of an intervention to ensure community engagement. This includes approaches for design and delivery processes or tools used for monitoring, evaluation and learning. Although the call acknowledges that meaningful engagement requires a participatory lens embedded throughout the entire planning and project cycle for higher outcomes and ownership, it is open to learning about tools and methods that support these goals at specific stages of an intervention/project.
Figure 1 Adapted from Pretty (1995), Arnstein (1969), International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), and White (1996). Figure 1 depicts various types of community participation, reflecting different levels of engagement in development interventions at community level. The progression goes from lower to higher levels of community engagement, but it does not prescribe a linear or hierarchical path. Instead, the figure offers a range of possible approaches to facilitate participation, tailored to the specific context and objectives of the intervention. As engagement deepens—from simply providing information to transferring decision-making power to the community— the community’s sense of empowerment and ownership over the process grows. Greater levels of engagement foster collective action, enhance accountability, and enable the community to take the lead in shaping their own development.
The call for submissions is open until 13 December 2024.
We thank participants in advance and look forward to learning from you!
Conveners:
- Lauren Phillips, Deputy Director, FAO - Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP)
- Adriano Campolina, Senior Policy Officer, FAO - Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP)
Co-facilitators:
- Christiane Monsieur, Project Coordinator, FAO - Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP)
- Andrea Sánchez Enciso, Gender and Community Engagement Specialist, FAO - Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP)
How to take part in this call for submissions:
To take part in this Call for submissions, please register to the FSN Forum, if you are not yet a member, or “sign in” to your account. Please review the topic note to understand the criteria we are considering for this call. If you wish to learn more about community engagement, you may refer to the background document. Once you have completed the submission template, upload it in the box “Post your contribution” on the call webpage, or, alternatively, send it to [email protected].
Please keep the length of submissions limited to 1,500 words and feel also free to attach relevant supporting materials.
[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2021, March 3). Tapping into community engagement for empowerment. FAO Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism. https://www.fao.org/flexible-multipartner-mechanism/news/news-detail/en/c/1378190
[2] The call for submissions is directly aligned with the thematic components of collective action within FAO's Programme Priority Areas (PPAs), specifically Better Life 1 (Gender Equality and Rural Women’s Empowerment), Better Life 2 (Inclusive Rural Transformation) and Better Life 3 (Agriculture and Food Emergencies).
[3] A gender-transformative approach “seeks to actively examine, challenge and transform the underlying causes of gender inequalities rooted in discriminatory social institutions. As such, a gender transformative approach aims to address the unequal gendered power relations and discriminatory gender norms, attitudes, behaviours and practices, as well as discriminatory or gender-blind policies and laws, that create and perpetuate gender inequalities.” FAO, IFAD, WFP & CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform. 2023. Guidelines for measuring gender transformative change in the context of food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture. Rome, FAO, IFAD, WFP and CGIAR. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc7940en
[4] A rights-based approach to community engagement emphasizes the fundamental human rights of all individuals, ensuring equal opportunities for everyone to claim and enjoy their human rights. Central to this is agency, the ability of individuals to define their own goals and act upon them. By promoting meaningful participation, accountability, non-discrimination, transparency, human dignity, empowerment and rule of law (‘PANTHER’ principles) this approach not only addresses power imbalances and systemic barriers but also fosters individual and collective agency.
Please read the article of FAO publications on this topic here.
Topics
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Dear Colleagues,
Please find a summary on a Gender Transformative Community engagement intervention that CIFOR-ICRAF and its partners is implementing in a collaborative manner. The project with an acronym "POWER" means: The Prioritizing Options for Women’s Empowerment and Resilience in Food Tree Value Chains in Malawi project. Initiated on 1 November 2021 and extended to 31 December 2025, this project aims to enhance women’s economic empowerment, reduce intra-household inequality, and support low-carbon, resilient livelihoods in Malawi. The project focuses on high-potential food tree value chains, specifically improved mango varieties.
POWER’s overarching goal is to create sustainable, inclusive agricultural practices that empower women economically while contributing to climate resilience and recovery from shocks like COVID-19. It leverages research-driven insights into gender norms, power dynamics, and value chain participation to identify opportunities for empowerment at household, community, and institutional levels. These efforts are underpinned by collaboration with diverse stakeholders, including government agencies, NGOs, private sector actors, and local communities.
For more information and materials produced under the POWER project, please refer to the links below:
https://www.cifor-icraf.org/project/06fa61b1a4c34b79a6ecba45d01cc211/
Estimado equipo,
Por parte de la oficina de FAO Chile compartimos la experiencia de:
"La Comunidad Indígena Mapuche Antonio Ñirripil del sector Temulemu, comuna de Traiguén, región de La Araucanía, desarrolla un proceso de forestación con especies nativas y restauración del bosque nativo" apoyada por el Proyecto +Bosques (REDD+ FVC) CONAF/FAO
"Feria Jiwasan Markasa" Apoyada por proyecto SIPAN (GEF) MINAGRI/FAO
Atentamente
Rita Borquez
Encargada Género y pueblos indigenas
FAO Chile
Dear colleagues,
We are delighted to share the Office of Emergencies and Resilience's (OER) contribution to this important initiative with a documented good practice from our Anticipatory Action work in Guatemala.
This example underscores the innovative use of seasonal calendars to enhance community engagement in Anticipatory Action. By adopting inclusive and culturally appropriate approaches, the practice strengthens local capacities to prepare for climate shocks and ensures that marginalized groups are meaningfully included in decision-making processes.
We hope this highlights the importance of locally driven solutions and reinforces the value of placing communities at the center of our work.
Thank you and kind regards,
Programme and Policy Team, OER - FAO
Estimado equipo,
Por parte de la oficina de FAO Chile compartimos la experiencia de:
"“Ciclo de Capacitación en Medios de Vida Sostenibles del Proyecto +Bosques e Iniciativa de Liderazgo de Mujeres en gestión de Bosques” implementada en conjunto por CONAF(MINAGRI) y FAO, con apoyo del FVC (REDD+)
Agradeciendo su buena acogida, les saluda
Rita Bórquez
Especialista en Género y Pueblos INdígenas
FAO Chile
Greetings,
Please find attached the case study titled “Gender-driven Social Transformation”, which highlights the impactful work of the Rural Support Programmes (RSP) - Network from Pakistan. RSPs operate across 152 districts of the country, fostering inclusive development and gender equality through innovative community engagement initiatives. This case study underscores our efforts to empower rural communities, particularly women and marginalised groups, and showcases key success stories, learnings, and replicable practices that can inspire similar initiatives elsewhere.
Thank you for providing this opportunity to share our experience and insights.
Sadaf Dar
Programme Officer gender and developmnet
Rural Support Programmes Network
Dr. Emily Gallagher
Greetings,
Attached is a Legal Empowerment Clinic guide developed as part of the global initiative for SECURING WOMEN’S RESOURCE RIGHTS THROUGH GENDER TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACHES funded by IFAD (2021-2024). This consortium of gender specialists from CIFOR-ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity-CIAT, and IFPRI tested approaches for designing GTAs with IFAD-funded projects from gender-analysis to validation/sensemaking, co-creation, training-of-trainers and localized pilots.
The Legal Empowerment Clinic Facilitation Guide was developed speciically for Uganda (led by LANDnet Uganda with the National Land Coalition), but could be adapted to other contexts by revising the legal literacy sections (policies, laws, legal instruments) and participatory activities (names and scenarios).
Additional publications and tools developed across six countries may be found on the project website: https://www.cifor-icraf.org/wlr/publications/
Dear Sir/Madam,
In responding to FAO Call for submission, Plan International Vietnam would like to share one of our good practices with details in the attachment.
We look forward to your feedback or questions if any.
Thank you and best regards,
Hoang Ha Nguyen (Ms.)
Grants Coordinator
Plan International Vietnam
Dear FSN Moderator,
We are sharing our Community Economies initiative in collaboration with Eka Nari Sanghathan (Adivasi single women's collective) in Odisha, India.
Best Regards,
Bhavya Chitranshi and Katherine Gibson
Estimado equipo,
Por parte de la oficina de FAO Chile compartimos la experiencia de:
"La Comunidad Indígena Mapuche Antonio Ñirripil del sector Temulemu, comuna de Traiguén, región de La Araucanía, desarrolla un proceso de forestación con especies nativas y restauración del bosque nativo" apoyada por el Proyecto +Bosques (REDD+ FVC) CONAF/FAO
"Feria Jiwasan Markasa" Apoyada por proyecto SIPAN (GEF) MINAGRI/FAO
Atentamente
Rita Borquez
Encargada Género y pueblos indigenas
FAO Chile
.
Am I noticing a major oversight in your list of people/organization to be included in your community discussions? I notice no mention of private service providers. Is that correct? Why the omission? Don’t they provide most of the business services in smallholder communities? I understand they are often vilified as trying to be greedy and only look at profits, which is the major reason for total commitment to producer organization. Is there any documented proof of this with verifiable accounting data? This might be extremely difficult as if you look at the overall economic environment in most host countries the private sector profit margin in razor thin, so the higher administrative overhead associated with producer organizations could result in relying on producer organizations could force smallholder farmers deeper into poverty. Can anyone provide detailed accounting comparison between private traders and producer organizations? I have been seeking this for nearly 20 years but have been unable to find any solid reference comparing the two business models.
Also, concerning private services providers, when we eventually accept the critical necessity to facilitate access to contract mechanization if we are ever to become serious about poverty alleviation for smallholder farmers, this will have to be done through individually owner/operator businesses. As any communal ownership via government agency or producer organizations results in valuable equipment being surveyed out of service with at most half the designed 10,000 operating hours. Just look at the line-up of out of service tractors at all the Nigerian ADP offices. If you need to note the impact of mechanization on smallholder production just review the shift from water buffalo to power tillers in paddy Asia. There it halved the crop established time, allow expansion of area cultivated, made double cropping rice a comfortable prospect and when the small combines were introduced rice production intensified to 5 crops every 2 years. Also, look at the role of contract mechanization in Egypt that is now the primary means of land preparation for smallholder farmers.
I hope all this supports the need to include private service providers in any discussion on any effort to improve social well-being in smallholder communities.
Referring to the groups you are including, how representative are they of the community you are serving. Isn’t it true that most producer organizations only attract about 10% of potential members, with 90 percent avoiding them, and perhaps wisely so? Also, don’t even the members usually side sell the bulk of their produce to those vilified private service providers? And don’t most producer organizations collapse once the external assistance ends, perhaps even before the last expatriate advisor clears the departure lounge enroute home? Not really an effective effort but has been the primary mechanism for assisting smallholders for some 40 years. How about the other organizations mentioned in the introduction, what percent of potential participants do they attract, vs. what percent happily operated independent of all organized assistance? Thus, do you have a sufficient quorum of active participants to act for the community as a whole? Remember projects are designated to serve an entire community not just a limited percentage.
Finally, all these coordinating meetings can consume a lot of time. How much time is consumed and how often is this a distraction from the primary task of producing agriculture output or providing essential services to the producers?
I am including a reference to an article I prepared for a symposium here at Colorado State University reflecting on my 50+ years working with smallholder farmers. The article is more factually accurate than politically correct and only an emeritus professor no longer beholden to the system has the freedom to be. The article covers more details for most of the rather provocative ideas expressed above. The link: https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2023/03/Reflections.pdf
Thank you