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DISCUSSION No. 130 • FSN Forum digest No. 1250
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Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment: benefits, challenges and trade-offs for
improving nutrition outcomes
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until 15 July 2016
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Dear Members,
Please find below the latest contributions on
Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment:
benefits, challenges and trade-offs for improving nutrition outcomes.
The facilitators of the discussion posted feedback on the comments received. Indeed, reflections on how stronger women
agency can improve nutritional outcomes in rural households and for children brought up several related issues: how can we tackle deeply-rooted gender relations and roles, awareness raising and involvement of men and other members of the household, changing
roles in influencing nutrition behaviours, ways in which seasonality affects rural women.
The discussion will stay open over the next weekend and the facilitators will wrap it up on Monday.
Please refer to the
FSN Forum webpage for a full overview of this lively exchange. We also remind you that comments are welcome in
English,
Arabic,
Chinese,
French,
Russian and
Spanish.
Your FSN Forum team
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CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED
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Shirin
Afroz, Helen Keller International, Bangladesh
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Shirin brings up the successes of the Helen Keller Institute’s Nurturing Connections curriculum which serves a way to
promote community level fora to discuss nutrition and gender related problems. Since its introduction, the curriculum has helped people develop skills in communication, assertiveness, and problem solving as well improving confidence and promoting positive
gender outcomes.
Read the contribution
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Rohit
Parasasr, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
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Rohit backs Sirajul’s comments about the importance of raising awareness and sensitising men. Men often do not partake
in these activities maybe because they deem them unproductive or non-income generating. This behaviour, however, is detrimental and should be addressed. Rohit therefore extends the discussion asking whether there are any policies/initiatives that address this
problem of gender sensitisation for better nutritional outcomes.
Read the contribution
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Eng
Shah Wali "Allokozai", Rural Rehabilitation Association for Afghanistan (NPO/RRAA), Afghanistan
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Eng mentions that we should forget the importance of livestock when it comes to women’s empowerment and agricultural
systems. In Afghanistan, women are traditionally responsible for livestock and therefore are those most knowledgeable of these practices. Capacity building should address and increase this knowledge while finding ways to bring them to market which will both
benefit them and the country’s economy.
Read the contribution
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Priya
Rampal, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
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In her own words, Priya stresses that “Empowering the women is the only way forward to tackling the inter-generational
aspect of malnutrition” and briefly explains why.
Read the contribution
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Amin
Uddin, Helen Keller International, Bangladesh
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Amin points out that homestead gardening has been a very fruitful approach for rural development. However, because of
the changing climate, new strategies have to be devised to combat associated problems like increased soil salinity. Despite difficulties in implementing proper educational programmes, once these were in place, significant reduction in inadequate diets was
observed.
Read the contribution
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Guo
Cheng, Sichuan University, China
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Guo praises the great strides China has made to reduce hunger in the country consequently achieving their MDG and improving
child nutrition by reducing stunting and underweight by 70% in 20 years. She share some of the programmes that allowed for this success but also points out that other problems are arising and new ways have to be devised to counter them, most notably through
the, previously neglected, importance of fathers and grandparents on child nutrition.
Read the contribution
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Bibhu
Santosh Bhera, Ouat Bhubaneswar, India
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Bibhu shares a paper of his authoring on communication system among the farmers and farm women in the Keonjhar district
of Odisha comparing them among men and women.
Read the contribution
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Md.
Sirajul Islam, BRAC, Bangladesh
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Sirajul presents a caveat to certain approaches for female empowerment. Seeing that empowerment is an important issue
most or all development initiatives, women might actually be overburdened in increased participation. In Bangladesh, women’s role in agriculture is limited to post-harvest activities and he believes that empowerment.
Read the contribution
In his earlier contribution, he shares the results from a study about floating gardens as means of dealing with agricultural
difficulties related to seasonality. In Bangladesh, during monsoon season when large portions of land are submerged, a technique was developed for growing hydrophilic plants on rafts which promoted year round produce regardless of weather patterns.
Read the earlier
contribution
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Mylene
Rodríguez Leyton, Universidad Metropolitana de Barranquilla, Colombia
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Mylene believes that policy recognition is crucial for empowerment because of the visibility and recognition it gives
to the issues at hand. She also shares with us an overview of a study about women’s roles in rural Colombia. Due to religious and cultural norms, women play a submissive role which can be detrimental to family nutrition. A silver lining though, is that, despite
this resistance, women are still able to participate in collective actions and community initiatives.
Read the contribution
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Tiphaine
Bueke, FAO, Democratic Republic of Congo
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As a means of promoting child and adult nutrition as well as education for all and economic empowerment, Tiphaine shares
a project she has been working on with FAO which involves school gardens. This initiative not only helps young children at school but also serves as a gateway to allow for better nutrition at home and an extra source of income for communities. Added to that
is a participative approach for gender awareness and female empowerment, notably through radio programmes.
Read the contribution
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Muhammad
Haseeb, PLAN International, Pakistan
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Muhammad brings up South Asian women’s important role in livestock management. He believes that empowering the most at
risk through education and the provision of productive assets is achievable and would be self-sustaining both nutritionally and as an income generating source. The only challenge is getting men on board to conduct gender sensitive training.
Read the contribution
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Muqueem
Shah Miakheel, Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan
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Muqeem agrees that, to allow for the development of rural Afghan women, women have to be integrated and supported in
the economic mainstream through education, employment and women’s rights.
Read the contribution
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