Women farmers and gender justice

Twin is working with smallholder organisations to end the exclusion of women farmers in the global south from decision-making, and to promote equality in the division of labour and finances. 

Twin’s aspiration is for men and women to act and participate equally within their families, organisations, and communities.   Gender considerations are integrated into all Twin projects to try to ensure men and women smallholders benefit equally.

Background

It is widely accepted that women smallholder farmers make a large contribution to the production of commodity cashcrops on their farms but derive a disproportionately low direct financial benefit from their work. Most cashcrops are owned and sold by men, who do not reliably share the earnings with their wives and female relations.

Studies show that where women control a significant proportion of family income, family members tend to benefit from improved health, nutrition and education.  Where men dispose of family income, far more is spent outside the family.

Twin and its long-term partners (in both producer and consumer countries) have been working in the gender area for a number of years, beginning in Ghana in cocoa in the 1990s and continuing in Latin America and East Africa in coffee in the 2000s. 

Most recently Twin has launched a project in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo) working toward greater inclusion and participation for women in coffee communities.

Twin’s Great Lakes gender programme

As part of its gender programme, Twin is currently working with a number of producer organisations in the Great Lakes region of Africa to roll out a gender inclusion project.

Our gender programme will be adapting a methodology already piloted with smallholder farmers in Uganda through the WEMAN programme developed by Oxfam Novib. A key part of this is the Gender Action Learning System (GALS).

GALS is a community-led empowerment methodology which aims at ‘constructive economic, social and political transformation’ for gender justice. It involves men and women together, looking at a variety of constraints and behaviours which create or deepen poverty both within the family and the local trading chains. 

The methodology was recently piloted by the microfinance co-operative Bukonzo Joint in Uganda with impressive results, including an increase in women’s land ownership and improvements in quality of coffee.

See GALS in action at Bukonzo Joint, Uganda

Through the Great Lakes project we hope to not only enhance the lives and livelihoods of women in the region, but to establish a robust approach and methodology which builds on the GALS model and can be rolled out elsewhere. Bukonzo Joint will work with Twin to provide training to other producer organisations in the GALS methodology.

Next steps

Twin starts its first gender pilot at Gumutindo Coffee in Uganda in early 2012 with the assistance of Bukonzo Joint.  In the subsequent months we will be training ‘champions’ to roll out the GALS methodology to our producer partners in the region. 

Twin would welcome additional funding to expand the reach of this gender work in both Africa and Latin America. Please get in touch to find out more.