IFAD’s ASAP Gender Assessment and Learning Review

Abstract

This report presents the findings and recommendations from a gender assessment and learning review
of IFAD’s Adaptation in Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP). This review is a reality-check into
how ASAP-supported projects are translating project design commitments to gender equality and
women’s empowerment into implementation practice. It is intended to provide reflections on how
implementation practice is likely to contribute to outcomes for gender equality and women’s
empowerment.
The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 provides clear recognition of the obligations of all parties to the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to human rights, gender equality,
empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity. The agreement states, for example: “Parties
acknowledge that adaptation should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully
transparent approach” (p.25).
At the same time, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that comprise the substance of the
commitments that underpin the Paris Agreement, and related climate policy frameworks and plans (e.g.
the National Adaptation Plans), are weak and inconsistent in integrating an understanding of gender
equality and women’s empowerment and the ways in which gender differences matter for climate
change adaptation and mitigation. The challenges and opportunities for agriculture when it comes to
both climate change adaptation and mitigation loom large in the NDCs and the NAPs. For some years,
key organizations and donors in small-scale agriculture and rural livelihoods have worked hard to
understand the specific challenges that women as well as men face in increasing incomes, productivity,
resilience and food and nutrition security. Organizational policies, guidelines and investments have been
developed to address the challenges of providing clear access for women and men to opportunities for
economic empowerment, and commitments have been made to support progress towards gender
equality through investments in development policies and practices. Similar efforts and initiatives are
being made across the globe in national policies and sectoral commitments in agriculture, livestock and
natural resources management.
Yet practice is challenging. Turning commitments into tangible activities takes sustained effort, shared
understanding of the goals, and spaces to learn and reflect with partners, small-scale producers, and
community leaders about what is relevant and impactful in different contexts. Technical specialists, with
training and experience in specific agricultural practices may not feel confident or comfortable exploring
how gender dynamics affect how those practices are made available to women as well as men, and how
gender roles in households can affect who benefits from adopting certain practices. Implementing
agencies, from government departments to non-governmental organizations, face significant resource
constraints, and can find the demands of in-depth gender and social analysis or evaluation too onerous
for staff capacities and budgets. Many stakeholders in projects may intuitively understand that
transformations in the ways that gender roles and behaviours are critical to the success of projects, but
it is difficult to conceptualize what ‘gender-transformative’ looks like in terms of project activities.
While this report presents key findings, conclusions and recommendations from a gender assessment
and learning review of eight country cases of ASAP-supported projects, it should be recognized that
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ASAP Gender Assessment and Learning Review – Final Report
these likely apply to a range of projects and investments being implemented and developed in the arena
of small-scale agriculture and adaptation to climate change in rural livelihoods.
It is therefore hoped that this report can provide the basis for further collaboration between IFAD, CARE
and CCAFS.