Back To Resource Library

1 + 1 = 1: Engaging Men and Women in Agriculture for Positive Impact

Authors:
The TOPS Program | TechnoServe
Year Published:
2016
Resource Type:
Technical Guidance
Language:
English

This case study is part of a series of TOPS Agriculture and Natural Resource Management case studies.

TechnoServe learned that focusing only on men or women in the household does not provide the greatest impact, because it neglects half of the agriculture labor force and because information is often not shared between men and women in the household. Instead, TechnoServe found that engaging both men and women from the same household can have a bigger impact on increasing women’s equal access to productive resources, resulting in increased agricultural productivity. In addition, they found substantial gender and household dynamic benefits to engaging both women and men, including increased knowledge sharing, reduced intra-household conflict and domestic violence, and increased joint financial decision making, which increased women’s control of agricultural income and assets.

From these lessons, TechnoServe implements gender best practices in their agriculture productive resource programming. Learn more about the gender best practices in the November ANRM case study.

Click here to read other case studies in the series.