Four main outputs of RWLP have potential for scaling up in Senegal and beyond.
• The College’s updated plan and its gender dimensions offer both policy and programming entry points to scale up support to reduce the gender gap in participation and influence in producer organizations.
• The training manuals and participant workbooks in French could be adapted for use in similar initiatives. However, these should ideally be translated into local languages for maximum impact.
• The concept notes for action research, microenterprise and support of community centres merit support because they are initiatives generated by women in grass-roots organizations, rather than top-down initiatives.
• The core trainers, the participants in the cascade training and the male leader participants in the gender-sensitization workshop could form a resource and reference group for similar initiatives. However, some refresher support would be necessary.
Senegal • The local workshops helped to identify
participants with the potential to become future core local trainers. • The participants’ enthusiasm and
commitment were critical factors for the success of the training and the whole programme.
• Women reported that they were better able to express their needs and priorities as a result of RWLP.
Challenges
• Due to delays in project start-up, activities on the ground effectively started in January 2011, after the project coordinator and another woman leader joined the train-the-trainer workshops organized in Madagascar.
• CNCR requested an extension because of the delays; however, IFAD was obliged, under current rules governing
grant administration, to close down the agreement with an overall expenditure of a little more than half of the
originally agreed US$150,000. Since the training of trainers had been completed but the cascade training had not been, IFAD made a significant effort to ensure that major planned activities were completed and intended project results were achieved. This was done by using US$71,137 returned funds under a different contractual agreement that would involve IFAD’s country office in Dakar (and specifically the regional gender coordinator based in Dakar, also cofinanced by Norway in an oversight role). This complementary initiative obliged IFAD to request an extension to the overall agreement, which was granted. The delays led to a loss of momentum, which resulted in the need for a campaign to remobilize key actors in 2012.
• Some activities were not implemented as planned (e.g. the concept notes for the planned subprojects in action research, microenterprise and support of community centres). IFAD should make efforts to explore other mechanisms for supporting these bottom-up initiatives. • The delay also meant that the
evaluation workshop focused more on the training, with little feedback on the advocacy dimension.
• The training modules contained too much content for effective rollout; either the content needed to be reduced or the training needed to be longer. Participants also felt that there needed to be more attention to managing disruptions, lengthy interventions, lateness and similar issues. Finally, there was
significant unmet demand for places but not enough on the training course.
Lessons learned
• Flexible implementation led to some
positive results. Some activities which
were not planned but were carried out were strategic and positively evaluated by participants. These included conducting the participatory organizational analysis, updating the College’s action plan and including gender equality concerns into CNCR’s strategic plan (2011-2015). Similarly, the participation in national-level sector round tables under CECI’s Uniterra programme allowed linkages to be made with complementary initiatives and provided a direct advocacy opportunity. This indicates that a flexible approach, which remains responsive to emerging opportunities, can be useful. This is especially the case when working with women and men who may not have had significant opportunity to reflect on their priorities. Projects which allow enough time for priorities to emerge should be encouraged; however, this
needs to be balanced by a focus on implementation.
• The impact of advocacy is difficult
to measure and attribute to RWLP.
Given the low awareness levels about women’s roles and priorities in farmers’ organizations, this component can be said to have been an essential building block for the rest of the programme.
Recommendations
Recommendations arising from the 2012 evaluation workshop are set out below:
• Excellent materials (training manuals and participant workbooks) were produced and some need to be strengthened and consolidated. These materials are an important resource and should be further refined, disseminated and translated, and opportunities to practically apply them should be identified. • Roll-out of the training should be
carried out within CNCR’s member organizations to meet the demand for training in additional locations and for more people. Participants with potential to be trainers should be identified and mobilized to deliver this training. • Core trainers should receive some
additional support to improve their research and ideally to benefit from peer exchanges with other trainers.
• CNCR should recognize the newly acquired skills of the women’s wing participants and support them to apply these skills on specific occasions. • The skills acquired by beneficiaries
should be translated into action and into the governance of farmers’ organizations. • Programme impacts should again be
evaluated at a later date because many benefits can be felt only over a longer period of time. A future evaluation may also support continued momentum. • The youth wing could learn from the
IFAD has already built upon the lessons learned and included these in the gender- specific components of the SFOAP, cofinanced by IFAD and the European Commission. IFAD will also do the same for other relevant upcoming programmes and projects.
“ The emergence of rural women’s leadership in farmers’ organizations … arises from a process of sensitization and information from different actors, strengthening the leadership capacity of women and also, importantly, their economic power. Women who are empowered economically can then claim their rightful place in decision-making spaces.”
Khadidja Doucoure, Regional Gender Coordinator, West and Central Africa
Nepal
Background and context
10In Nepal, a decade-long armed conflict through 2006 and the outmigration of men from rural areas increased the burden on women and resulted in the ‘feminization’ of agriculture. Policies, programmes and development interventions support rural women to increase their capacities to organize into groups to access opportunities more effectively. Policy initiatives include a constitutional provision (2007) to ensure that women comprise at least 33 per cent of all state structures. However, despite government support, women’s representation remains limited; for example, until recently there were no women District Agriculture Development Officers in any of the 75 districts.
Patriarchal norms typically relegate women to the home and limit their mobility, which in turn limits their economic opportunities. The Nepalese social castes create additional inequalities; Dalit (often called ‘untouchable’) women are marginalized by women from other castes, preventing them from accessing available opportunities.
Goals and objectives
In Nepal, the two-year RWLP pilot project, with a budget of US$150,000, covered five districts in central Nepal: Chitawan, Lalitpur, Kavre, Sindhuli and Sindhupalchowk, where most development programmes, particularly those related to climate change, were
concentrated. Local adaptation plans of action (LAPAs) represented an opportunity for women to benefit equally from opportunities and to tap into available resources.
RWLP aimed to:
• Strengthen the capacities of rural women, their associations at all levels and their professional organizations. • Enhance the quality of policy advocacy
and dialogue.
Main activities
Programme activities focused on providing training and capacity-building for trainers and women leaders at the national and local regional levels. This included reviewing relevant policy frameworks with a gender lens and organizing advocacy activities through the media and international meetings.
RWLP was initiated with the All Nepal Peasants’ Federation (ANPFa), a key umbrella association, together with two federations of grass-roots women’s groups, HIMAWANTI and ASTHA. The women’s organizations aim to promote solidarity among rural grass-roots women to enhance their participation in decision-making processes, their access to natural resources and a more equitable distribution of the benefits deriving from these resources.
WOCAN was the implementing
organization in Nepal and the Philippines. It was well placed to scale up RWLP impact
through its other activities and global advocacy network of women leaders in agriculture.
A ‘training of trainers’ approach was adopted to trigger a cascade effect from trainers to leaders at the district level and then to women leaders in rural organizations. The training focused on negotiation skills, confidence-building, self-development and technical knowledge on natural resource management. The capacity development also had a very practical dimension – it was geared to enable women to access funds earmarked for gender issues at the district level. RWLP raised awareness about these funds and gave women the confidence and practical skills to access them.
Trainers were trained to roll out the capacity-development plan to lower tiers of organizations. Activities at this level targeted:
• WOCAN staff, with a three-day training workshop on ‘Gender Mainstreaming and Organizational Change’ for 18 ASTHA and HIMAWANTI staff and district-level women members.
• Partner organizations HIMAWANTI and ASTHA, with coaching and mentoring support from WOCAN as well as workshops to develop organizational vision and support organizational change. Organizational change encompassed gender mainstreaming and a review of organizational structure. RWLP also organized a five-day
workshop to train trainers on ‘Rural Women’s Leadership Development’. This workshop focused on leadership concepts; the relationship between leadership concepts, masculinity and femininity; and reframing ‘leadership’ and building strategic skills to support it. Participants then shared their learning with other members of their organizations, with WOCAN’s support.
Leaders at the district level were trained by HIMAWANTI and ASTHA (about 300 women from six districts).
Women leaders in rural organizations benefited from the following activities:
• Women received training on ‘Women’s Leadership and Organizational Change’. The women then became the focal points for rolling out the leadership training within their groups at the local levels.
• This rollout included mentoring and coaching of rural women leaders by a lead WOCAN trainer and trained RWLP staff through workshops, field visits, individual coaching and exposure visits.