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Gender and innovative, labour-saving technologies

FAO supports farmers across all agricultural subsectors with innovative technologies and practices for crop, fisheries, livestock and forest management. The impact of these technologies can significantly reduce work burden and food loss, and improve efficiency, as they can be instrumental for the production (land preparation, harvest and animal breeding), aggregation (drying, storing, shelling and cooling products), processing (sorting and milling) and distribution (packaging and shipping) of food. Moreover, digital and information technologies, such as mobile applications, Global Positioning System (GPS) and blockchains, are becoming increasingly available in supporting and connecting different nodes of food and agricultural chains. Technologies, however, may also exacerbate existing inequalities and lead to job loss, particularly for women, through automation and mechanization.

International frameworks, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, recognize that technologies can be catalysts for women’s economic empowerment. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Article 14 calls for the development and dissemination of technologies appropriate for rural women.

These frameworks also highlight the substantial contribution of rural women to the agricultural labour force, which is particularly important in a context where social and environmental factors are affecting and changing gender roles. For example, many countries are experiencing the feminization of agriculture, where women are taking on new challenges in managing farms and making financial decisions due to outmigration of men.

Despite the opportunities offered by technologies, the adoption by rural women remains low, as they suffer from the triple divide (digital, rural and gender). Women often do not adopt technologies due to their inadequate design and concerns over safety and social acceptability. They also find it more difficult to access key services that provide the know-how, the information and the credit for renting or buying technology. For example, the proportion of women, worldwide, who are using internet is 12 percent lower than men and up to 25 percent in Africa. 

To tackle these issues, FAO collaborates with key international development organizations, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Bank and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and national partners to raise awareness of women’s work burden, and to disseminate labour-saving and innovative technologies and good practices. Through projects and programmes, FAO supports the identification and adoption of technologies and raises gender awareness of service providers who provide these technologies such as agricultural mechanization. FAO also works to tackle the social norms at household and community levels that undermine women’s access to technologies.

 

  • Technologies need to be evaluated based on their capacity to support rural women’s work in terms of their labour-saving potential and impact on employment. Strategies and actions that address the constraints women face in adopting technologies are more effective at household, service and policy levels.
  • Labour and time-use assessments in production systems highlight women’s work and analyze their access to technologies and practices.

  • Specific measures need to be put in place, at national and local levels, to advocate for women’s equal access to technologies and services and integrate the gender dimensions in related national policies and strategies.
  • Foster policy dialogue and exchange amongst relevant stakeholders, strengthening the capacities of policy-makers to analyze labour- and technology-related data (sex-disaggregated), and integrate gender priorities in policies and strategies with a technology component (including policies governing farmers’ access to assets and services, such as agricultural mechanization, extension, input subsidy, cooperatives and telecommunications).
  • Develop and disseminate gender-transformative interventions and approaches to tackle behavioural change and promote household and community dialogue. This will help to achieve joint decision-making and sharing of tasks between men and women.
  • Support dialogue between technology producers and farmers, and strengthen the capacities of technology service providers to reach women (such as financial, insurance, vet and pricing apps).
  • Explore formal and informal credit, insurance and saving products for women to facilitate their access to innovative and labour-saving technologies and practices.
  • Facilitate women’s participation in producer organizations, by reviewing entrance regulations and protecting their products or by-products, and in saving and credit cooperatives, and in farmer field schools so they can benefit from offered credit schemes, mechanization and training.
  • Design women-specific interventions, combining asset distribution with technology provision and training. This has proved efficient for income generation, environmental impact and time saving.

FAO hosts the Technologies and Practices for Small Agricultural Producers (TECA), a dedicated platform that includes over 100 labour-saving and innovative technologies and practices adopted by many countries and that organizes share fairs on these technologies, bringing together policy-makers, planners, researchers, rural people, civil society organizations and the private sector.

FAO is working to build the knowledge base and strengthen the capacities of all stakeholders and to promote good practices that improve rural women’s access to information, technologies and markets.  

Rural radio is the most popular media tool in Africa, particularly in isolated areas and amongst rural women. As such, FAO Dimitra Clubs, which are informal groups of rural women, men and young people that come together to discuss common challenges and take collective action to address them, equip their members with wind-up and solar-powered radios, often paired with mobile phones connected in a fleet. As part of the process, community radio stations are used to relay information, broadcast debates on air and facilitate exchange, capitalization of good practices and networking. The added value of this approach is the combined use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with gender-transformative and community-driven processes, which has been shown to enable rural women’s empowerment, social inclusion and improved dialogue.

The FAO-Thiaroye fish processing technique, developed with the Senegal National Training Centre for Fisheries and Aquaculture Technicians is a simple but efficient alternative to traditional fish smoking, which has been broadly disseminated throughout Africa and Asia. It was identified as a labour-saving technology with a high potential for economic empowerment. Its benefits for women have proven to be numerous, such as a healthier work environment, better quality products, extra time to attend literacy classes and improved income.   

A stream of work was built on the nexus between gender and ICTs to unlock the full potential of ICTs for rural women in accessing information, technologies and markets. This led to the publications Gender and ICTs: Mainstreaming gender in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and rural development and Investing in information and communication technologies to reach gender equality and empower rural women. FAO also produced the policy brief Fostering the uptake of labour-saving technologies – How to develop effective strategies to benefit rural women; the paper Running out of Time and the information brief Addressing women’s work burden – key issues, promising solutions and way forward to raise awareness and the commitment towards women’s empowerment.