weai and food security in bangladesh
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at Dhaka Gender Workshop, June 2014TRANSCRIPT
Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: What role for food security in Bangladesh?
Esha Sraboni, Hazel Malapit, Agnes Quisumbing, and Akhter Ahmed
Poverty, Health and Nutrition DivisionInternational Food Policy Research Institute
Introduction
Achieving gender equity and empowering women is a goal in itself (MDG3). Would women’s empowerment also lead to improved food security outcomes?
We use a new measure of women’s empowerment: – To diagnose areas where gaps in empowerment exist for
women in rural Bangladesh– To examine the relationship between women’s
empowerment in agriculture and two measures of household food security
• Per capita calorie availability• Household dietary diversity
The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)Survey-based index designed to measure empowerment
and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector– Collaboration between USAID, IFPRI and the Oxford Poverty and
Human Development Initiative – Designed initially as tool to monitor US government’s Feed the
Future interventions– Broadly applicable as a diagnostic tool to identify potential areas
for policy intervention
WEAI is made up of two sub indices– Five domains of empowerment (5DE)– Gender parity index (GPI)– All range from zero to one (higher values mean greater
empowerment)
A woman’s empowerment score shows her own achievements
Who is empowered?
A woman who has achieved ‘adequacy’ in 80% or more of the weighted indicators is empowered
Data
IFPRI’s Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2011-2012; nationally representative of rural Bangladesh
Final estimation sample: 3,273 farm households
Household-level data on weekly food acquisition used to construct calorie and dietary diversity measures
WEAI survey data used to construct individual empowerment scores for primary males and females in households
Which domains contribute most to women’s disempowerment in Bangladesh?
Inadequacy in LEADERSHIP 35.1%
Inadequacy in RESOURCES 21.6%
Inadequacy in INCOME 15.8%
Inadequacy in PRODUCTION
14.9%
Inadequacy in TIME12.7%
Food security outcome variables1. Per capita calorie availability
– Daily calorie equivalents from 7-day household food consumption data, divided by the number of household members
2. Diet diversity score– Count of food groups consumed using the 7-day household
food consumption data– Food was grouped into 12 categories:
• 1) cereals; 2) white tubers and roots; 3) vegetables; • 4) fruits; 5) meat; 6) eggs; 7) fish and other seafood; • 8) legumes and nuts; 9) milk and milk products; 10) oils and fats; • 11) sweets; and 12) spices, condiments, and beverages
Empowerment measures
Empowerment score of primary female (overall empowerment in the five domains)
Gender parity gap (=0 if have gender parity) Leadership domain:
– Number of groups in which she is an active member Resources domain:
– Average number of credit decisions she participates in solely/jointly
– Number of assets she has sole/joint ownership of– Number of decisions over purchase/sale/transfer of assets
she participates in solely/jointly
Other control variables– Household characteristics (age, education, occupation of
household head, demographic and other socio-economic characteristics)
– Price of rice– Production diversity: Number of food crops produced by
household
Method of impact estimation– Instrumental variables regression
Impacts on calorie availability (kcal per capita per day)
-1500
-1000
-500
0
500
1000
1500
892 814 806
14620
-1282
Gender parity
gap
Impacts on weekly household dietary diversity (number of food groups)
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1.91.7
0.9
0.20.01
-2.6
Gender par-ity gap
Summary of results
Empowerment gaps are greatest in terms of leadership in the community and control and access to resources
Overall women’s empowerment score, the number of groups in which women actively participate, women’s control of assets and ability to take decisions regarding credit have a positive impact on calorie availability and dietary diversity.
Reducing the empowerment gap between men and women in the same household also contributes to increasing calorie availability and dietary diversity
Summary of results …continued
Empowerment and land ownership– Our results also indicate that the positive effect of the
different dimensions of female empowerment on food security outcomes is greater for smaller landowners, that is, for less well-off households. The results point to the potential positive redistributive effect of focusing on women’s empowerment on poorer households
Summary of results…continued
Rice price is not significantly associated with household calorie availability, but is strongly and positively associated with household dietary diversity
Increasing crop production diversity also contributes to household calorie availability and dietary diversity.
Policy implications
Support policies to reduce gender gaps between men and women
Increase opportunities for women to exercise leadership in the community– Group-based programs (NGOs), local government, etc.
Strengthen women’s access to land and other resources – Livestock, farm equipment, credit from banks and NGOs, etc.
Policy implications
Ensuring not only access to, but also active role of women in decision making over these resources – Evaluation of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor Program (TUP): access
doesn’t necessarily mean controlAdditional analysis of determinants of empowerment show that:
– Vulnerable Group Development Program (VGD) participants more empowered.
• Expansion of VGD coverage• Targeted assistance programs should go beyond just providing
assistance Illiterate women less empowered Importance of including menSupport agricultural policies to increase production diversity in
this predominantly rice-based economy
Thank You