Gender Mainstreaming in the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) Project

Abstract

The Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) Project aims to mainstream gender by promoting gender-aware thinking and activities at distinct implementation levels. Evidence shows that gender inequality is closely connected to food and nutrition insecurity (e.g., Belachew et al. 2011; Haidar and Kogi-Makau 2009). Women face genderspecific constraints regarding access to and control over agricultural resources such as land, inputs and credit. Though playing a major role in agricultural production and related tasks, they often lack knowledge of new agricultural technologies and practices, and agricultural extension regularly excludes them. Given women’s important, though underappreciated, role in agriculture and in the family as primary caregivers, their inclusion in all phases of the maize production and consumption chain was identified as imperative