Navigating resilience pathways in Laos: integrating GESI in the Agroecology Initiative

Climate change is causing extreme weather events such as droughts and floods to occur more frequently in Laos. These shocks are profoundly impacting local livelihoods and ecosystems in harmful ways.

Lakes, crucial for fishing, are drying up more and more often. Diets are less diverse because forests—which were previously used to source wild foods—are being cut down to make way for cassava plantations.* Subsistence livelihoods are no longer feasible. The need to adapt quickly is placing women and men under enormous pressure to plan their livelihoods and work together.

Previously, women worked on the farm, and in household and care work. Men were considered the breadwinners and worked mostly as agricultural laborers, in construction, and other low-skill jobs in the nearby cities or further afield.

Today, women and men farmers face challenges but also opportunities as they become integrated into the market economy. Women are setting up small, home-based shops selling essential everyday items, and both women and men seek work on private large-scale plantations. Nevertheless, the pace of change is so rapid that it is hard for people to keep up.

The CGIAR Initiative on Agroecology in Laos, led by IWMI, is placing gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) at the center of its efforts to achieve resilience in the Attapeu province in southern Laos.

The initiative is unpacking the ways in which women and men are creating diverse pathways towards achieving economic and ecological resilience, and using this knowledge to devise strategies that address gendered vulnerabilities to ensure equitable benefits from the interventions, particularly in relation to improving water management (see Box 1).

Box 1. Examples of agroecological, climate-smart innovations that were co-designed and introduced in Attapeu

• new rice varieties (red rice) that are pest resistant and require low inputs
• solar-powered groundwater pumps for vegetables for more sustainable irrigation
• integrated wetland management through community-driven governance frameworks that address biodiversity loss and water scarcity
• soil improvement practices such as integrating legumes into cropping cycles, and assessing soil quality to reduce dependency on chemical inputs

Capacity-building a first step towards integrating GESI in participatory research

A starting point for integrating GESI effectively into the initiative was to strengthen the capacity of the team, most of whom have biophysical science backgrounds. The AE-I Laos team collaborated with two gender scientists from the global AE-I team to develop an interactive GESI training program of five days in the ‘classroom’ and four days in the field.

The classroom training created a safe space for the team to test a suite of three participatory tools and revise them to fit local conditions. Biophysicists on the team shared their technical knowledge on challenges facing local communities. The field days allowed the team to test their new skills in conducting gender-integrated participatory research, guided by the gender experts leading the training.

Two months later, a national expert trained the team in the Gender Action Learning System (GALS)—a gender-transformative methodology. This was followed by six days of training in four communities (including the two discussed here). IWMI Laos country lead Mark Dubois emphasized that “the training and follow-up joint research has provided the team an opportunity to mainstream GESI across the entire IMWI Laos program, and make real progress towards achieving IMWI’s strategic goal of facilitating effective and inclusive participation and addressing global inequalities.”

Guiding framework captures GESI dimensions of resilience

Central to the AE-I Laos team’s understanding of resilience is the Conceptual Framework on Economic Resilience Pathways. The framework highlights five key elements that shape women’s and men’s abilities to build resilience:

• Gender norms: Addressing restrictive gender norms to foster equitable decision-making and collaborative resilience-building both at household and community levels.
• Intersectionality: Supporting the development of inclusive approaches that address the specific needs of diverse community members.
• Life course stage: Individuals’ resilience pathways are shaped by their stage in life, with varying capacities and vulnerabilities across these stages.
• Personal traits: Characteristics such as adaptability, risk-behaviour, curiosity and willingness to innovate, influence how individuals respond to shocks and opportunities.
• Power and agency: The ability of people to act independently and to move towards desired outcomes in their lives.

The framework identifies three primary pathways that individuals may take for resilience building:

• Absorptive pathways: These involve immediate coping mechanisms to withstand shocks.
• Adaptive pathways: Medium- to long-term adjustments that include diversifying livelihoods, adopting climate-smart agriculture, etc.
• Transformative pathways: Fundamental, systemic changes that address the root causes of vulnerability, such as redefining gender roles or improving the gender-responsiveness of governance.

A critical recognition is that sometimes people fail to cope—they are unable to adequately respond to shocks, leading to increased vulnerability.

Two ethnic groups mapped gender norms and community changes

The participatory research methodology was then designed using this framework as a basis, and consisted of four tools adapted to the local context.

To conduct the research, two distinct communities living in two adjacent villages were brought together. The first village was mostly inhabited by the Oy ethnic group, and the second by the Lao Lum, the dominant ethnicity in Laos. We ensured the inclusion of marginalized groups, people living with disabilities (PLWD) and people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds—who rarely participate in village events—by using purposive sampling criteria. Overall, 24 people (12 women and 12 men) participated.

The tools:

• Community River of Life: Participants mapped environmental, hydrological, economic and social changes over the past three decades at the community level, highlighting how these influenced gender roles and relations (mixed-gender groups).
• Individual Rivers of Life: Community members reflected on personal milestones, challenges, and moments of joy, providing gendered insights into resilience-building (single-gender groups).
• Gender Norms Analysis: Participants listed and ranked gender norms, and discussed their relevance and the ways in which they are changing (single-gender groups).
• Innovative Characteristics: Participants explored how gender norms influence the ability of women and men to innovate, and discussed the work of the AE-I (single-gender groups).

These activities were complemented by key informant interviews (one per community) with representatives of the village committees (also represented in the Nong Lôm management committee), youth union representatives, and Lao Women’s Union representatives. In addition, we met with the head of the shared health center, the head of the local bank, and heads of the primary and secondary school. These people represent cross-cutting institutions shared by the two villages. Further interviews were conducted with the provincial head of the Lao Women’s Union and the Deputy of Department of Agriculture and Forestry (a woman).

Gender roles, farming practices and income sources are changing

Women and men in these two communities have distinct roles and responsibilities in agriculture (mostly paddy and vegetables, although people are increasingly growing cassava and, to some extent, sugar cane). Men typically undertake land preparation, while women manage most other tasks in the paddy fields and in their home gardens.

However, these roles often intersect—particularly during harvest, where collaborative efforts are common. Women and men both fish, although the nearby lake has dried up completely several times over the past 20 years. This has killed most aquatic vegetation, and reduced fish diversity and numbers. The water from these lakes is also used to irrigate paddy and vegetable plots. Previously, men hunted, but this livelihood has now died out due to deforestation.

The evolving economic landscape is reshaping gender roles and responsibilities for both ethnic groups. While men are still viewed as primary breadwinners, women are increasingly expected to earn money through home-based enterprises. A few women (and in some cases children) temporarily leave their village to work on nearby plantations alongside their spouses. Women’s participation in community meetings often exceeds that of men, partly due to the absence of many men who work outside the community. This is strengthening women’s influence in local governance—particularly in relation to health, where women dominate outreach.

Institutions like the Lao Women’s Union (LWU) and local banks have enacted national legislation on gender equality. For instance, joint spousal consent is required for loans, and inheritance laws ensure equitable asset distribution among children. This is particularly important among the Oy: a patrilineal community, where assets were previously preferentially passed to male children. The Lao Lum is traditionally matrilineal, where inheritance passes through the female line. These legal changes are helping to build women’s asset base and to strengthen their voice in intrahousehold and community-level decision-making.

These findings are informing interventions and collaborations through GALS in Attapeu. The team is also now cognisant of the more-sharply-differentiated gender relations in more remote communities than the two communities included here, and will refine interventions to address those.

Transforming researcher mindsets is critical to scaling GESI integration

Members from the AE-I Laos team expressed they learned a lot from their engagement in this study and are eager to take the efforts further. Ammala Chanthalath (IWMI) said, for instance, “My involvement in this study was a very important experience that helped me learn how to conduct research in the future. It has taught me to consider the complex interplay of gender norms, power and agency, intersectionality, and life stages in understanding resilience.”

Somphasith Douangsavanh (IWMI) also testified to learning a lot from his involvement in the training and study. He particularly likes the tools from GALS, especially the Gender Balance Tree, which made him reflect on his personal life too. “Before knowing this exercise, I had never written down how I spend time daily, and I did not fully understand what my wife does in detail. After completing the exercise, I realized who is doing most of the work at home.”

Somphasith’s and Ammala’s reflections show that working on gender equality and social inclusion is not only academic or professional, it also affects us, our ideas, our biases and ‘truths.’ The AE-I Laos work on GESI has helped to build a consciousness among these biophysical scientists that gender is very important and must be considered in all projects.

* These cassava plantations were established in the mid-2010s, are very productive due to conducive temperatures and soils, and receive strong government support. Farmers are increasingly growing cassava, and large-scale actors own big plantations.