Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 08/2008

Empowering Women Through Livelihoods Orientated Agricultural Service Provision: A Consideration of Evidence from Southern Africa

A. J. E. Charman

January 2008

United Nations University

Abstract

The paper considers the impact of livelihoods oriented agricultural service provision for smallholder farmers on gender relationships and food security. The paper contents that the democratization and liberalization of agricultural services towards participatory, bottom-up approaches, from the early 1990s has brought favourable gender gains to women. The paper examines the background to this shift in agricultural service provision. The resulting gender gains, we argue, should be seen in terms of Sen’s notion of entitlements. We examine evidence of these gains from developments and cases in Malawi and Zambia and draw supporting evidence from Zimbabwe and South Africa. ...