Attachment_25-Gender_Assessment_of_USAID_Agriculture_Programs_Aug_2012.pdf

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

July – August 2012

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GENDER ASSESSMENT OF USAID AGRICULTURE PROGRAMS

This evaluation was:

Contracted under USAID Contract Number: AID-306-O-12-00-00043 Gender Assessment of USAID’s Agriculture

Sayara Media & Communication House # 134, Gulfroshi Street District # 4, Shahr-e-Naw Kabul, Afghanistan www.sayara-media.com info@sayara-media.com +93 (0)799 794 679

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TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Executive Summary

Key Findings

Methodology

3.1 The Team

3.2 Limitations

Baseline Characteristics of Agriculture Sector for Women

4.1 Traditional Work

4.2 “Invisible Work”

4.3 Internal Constraints

4.4 External Constraints

4.5 Constraints by Region

Afghanistan Government’s Commitments to Women

5.1 Afghan National Stakeholder Perspectives

5.1.1 Stakeholders’ Concerns

5.1.2 Stakeholders’ Suggestions

Focus Group Discussion Findings:

6.1 Kandahar (South)

6.2 Nangarhar (East)

6.3 Balkh (North)

6.4 Herat (West)

USAID’s Agriculture Programs Gender Focus

7.1

ACE/ADF

7.1.1 Implementing Partner Report

ADF

7.1.2 Field Report

7.2

CHAMP

7.2.1 Implementing Partner:

Roots of Peace

7.2.2 Field Report

7.3

IDEA-‐NEW

7.3.1 Implementing Partner Report Northeast Mercy Corps

7.3.2 Implementing Partner Report East Development Alternatives, Inc.

(DAI)

7.3.3 Field Report

7.4

S-‐RAD

7.4.1 Implementing Partner Report

IRD

7.4.2 Field Report

Gender Action Plan

8.1 General Approach Recommendations

8.1.1 Home-‐Based Small Products Little Impact

8.1.2 Mainstream Cultivation Livestock Management Little to Mid level Impact

8.1.3 Processing Marketing Mid to High Level Impact

8.1.4 Leadership Management High Impact

8.2 Structural Recommendations

8.2.1

STEP

ONE:

Creating the Conditions

8.2.2

STEP

TWO:

Implementation (Varying by Province)

8.3 Regional Recommendations

8.3.1 North Highly Suitable

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8.3.2 West Mid to High Level of Suitability

8.3.3 East Mid Level Suitability

8.3.4 South Low Level Suitability

8.4 National Program Recommendations:

8.4.1 National Awareness Campaign

8.4.2 Partner with Local Women’s NGOs

8.4.3 Supplemental Education/Training Opportunities

8.4.4 Centers for Women’s Agriculture Agribusiness Education

Assignment Statement of Work

Persons Interviewed (Non-‐Focus Group Discussions)

10.1 Implementing Partners

10.2 National Stakeholders Government

10.3 National Stakeholders Non-‐Governmental Organizations

References

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Acronyms

1. ACE/ADF - Agricultural Development Fund’s Agricultural Credit Enhancement

2. AFSA – Afghanistan Farm Service Alliance

3. ANA – Afghan National Army

4. ANDS – Afghanistan National Development Strategy

5. AREU – Afghanistan Research & Evaluation Unit

6. CAT – Civil Affairs Team

7. CDC – Community Development Council

8. CHAMP - Commercial Horticulture and Agriculture Marketing Project

9. DAI – Development Alternative Inc.

10. DAIL – Directorate of Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock

11. DDA – District Development Assembly

12. DoWA – Directorate of Women’s Affairs

13. FET – Marine’s Female Engagement Team

14. FGD – Focus Group Discussion

15. FOB – Forward Operating Base

16. GDP – Gross Domestic Product

17. GME – Gender & Microenterprise Unit

18. HLP – Horticulture & Livestock Project

19. IDEA-NEW - Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives – North, East, West

20. ILG-NRMP - Improving Livelihoods and Governance through Natural Resource

Management Project

21. IRD – International Relief and Development

22. MAIL – Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation & Livestock

23. MoWA – Ministry of Women’s Affairs

24. NGO – Non-governmental Organization

25. OAG – Office of Agriculture

26. PRT – Provincial Reconstruction Team

27. S-RAD - Southern Regional Agricultural Development

28. TOEFL - Test Of English as a Foreign Language

29. UNEP – United Nations Environmental Program

30. USD – U.S. Dollar

31. USAID – United States Agency for International Development

32. WAYOADO – Women and Youths for Peace and Development Organization

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1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sayara was hired by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Agriculture to assess how they have included women in their most recent agricultural projects, and to discover if there was a way for them to a) be more inclusive of women moving forward and b) help women advance in agriculture and agribusiness. The goal of this assessment was to imagine what an emerging path for gender incorporation in agriculture programs looks like, and to suggest practical – yet progressive – ways for USAID to implement it.

This assessment includes the perceptions of a variety of stakeholders at both the national and ground level to assess the state of women in agriculture from an Afghan point of view, and identifies opportunities that are often overlooked for women’s involvement – and growth – in agriculture.

There have been many programs that have worked towards Afghan women’s empowerment in agriculture. While they have varied, the programs have mainly encouraged women’s involvement at the grassroots level in livestock and horticulture.

Such projects have focused on women’s work in the home, and have helped them to make remarkable strides in gaining income, supporting their households and improving the health of their families. Moving into 2013, these programs must be mainstreamed so that women are included in regular agricultural activities, and to ensure that they have the same opportunities as men.

USAID has the important goal of identifying value chainsi where women can acquire management roles and work alongside men. But the speed at which this will happen varies significantly depending on where in the country it is being implemented.

When thinking about how to approach these projects, and women’s inclusion in them, it is recommended that you assess both the arability of land in the region where the project will be implemented, and how conservative the attitudes are toward women. These two ground realities contribute greatly to how successful and sustainable programs will be, especially as the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), and local non-governmental organizations take the lead in steering programs.

In the South, for instance, land is arable for cultivation but women are bound to their homes – unless the crop is highly lucrative, like poppy, where women’s contribution to the wealth of the home is nearly guaranteed. On the other end of the continuum is the West, where the land is not as arable, agribusiness is more emphasized, and attitudes toward women are more liberal. Respecting this variance provides realistic expectations for gender parity in agriculture and agribusiness, and helps to develop a smart approach so that women move up at a pace where they feel confident.

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The USAID agriculture office is especially cognizant of not forcing culture change in areas where program officers and beneficiaries’ lives may be at risk. This is vital. But taking this into consideration, and working more closely with local government officials and NGOs, can help create the conditions for women to become more active in the agricultural activities of their choosing – and to help them identify their potential, which they may be unaware they have.

This requires regular coordination at the local and national level, with both the ministries and the district offices – wherever possible. It is also essential that USAID’s implementing partners keep the local level officials abreast of their work at the implementation stage. To ensure sustainability, MAIL, too, should be working to more actively include gender priorities in their programs. And a series of regional communication campaigns that highlight the economic incentive for women to participate more robustly in agriculture – taking into consideration cultural sensitivities – could support efforts at the local level to acquire the support of men.

This isn’t just a challenge for Afghanistan, but elsewhere around the world: Universally, agriculture is a male-dominated field. Finding access points for women to not just contribute and earn a living, but thrive and become leaders, brings inherent challenges.

By looking at the approach that national and local leaders, and project beneficiaries, prescribe, we’ve outlined a path for gender incorporation of agriculture activities that we hope will be sustainable.

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2 KEY FINDINGS

Entry points for Afghan women in agriculture activities beyond their homes and in agribusiness vary wildly by where they live. It’s important to take a regional approach to assess what is possible and not yet possible for women’s inclusion in USAID agriculture programs.

If you separate the country into four quadrants, there are different degrees of difficulty for including women in agriculture activities depending on how conservative attitudes are toward women (which are also often the most volatile), and how arable the land is.

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Our interviews with program participants reflected this. In the South and East, men did not want women to be exposed to men who were not in their families; the bulk of women’s agriculture activities should initially focus on activities in closed spaces – either through the home compound, or in factories or offices. In the North, men interviewed were concerned that agriculture activity required too much manual labor that women should not have to do. In the West, men were not outright opposed to women working in agriculture, but mainly focused on the economic benefits that any crop, such as Saffron, could bring.

While agribusiness opportunities for women seemed to be the most available in the North and the West, there is also an opportunity for women in the South and East – given that they can first access the necessary education, conduct business in safe/non-exposed spaces, and receive safe transportation to work. However, this is more possible in the East than the South. In the South specifically, the approach should be to strategically identify entry points for women’s participation, such as first selecting minority communities first that are not as conservative as Pashtuns (i.e. Shi’a communities in Kandahar and Lashkar Gah cities).

-- In the South, agriculture is vibrant, but it is traditionally man’s work. Because there is more arable land per capita than in the other three regions, southern Afghanistan is the ideal place for expanding women’s role in agriculture. But in prosperous homes that benefit from the agriculture-based economy, men do not have a financial need for women to work. Economic prosperity therefore enables men to exert their control over women, and exercise strong, conservative values that keep them bound to the home.

Agriculture’s significance to everyday life has also affected education. Education is not traditionally seen to be a necessity for men, and especially not for women – for they had no need for it inside the home. As one interviewee articulated, even if a family is poor, they would not let their women work because of strong conservative values. Poor families who need women to contribute labor to agriculture cannot break societal norms that are enforced by the majority, and the more wealthy class.

Our assessment shows that there is some hope for women to work on home agriculture projects – or even in the agri-business side. But it requires an increase in education opportunities, a realization among men that women’s participation could benefit them economically, and non-exposed spaces for women to work safely.

Another opportunity for expanding women’s role in agriculture and agribusiness is to target non-Pashtun minorities to create examples. There are smaller communities in every town in the South that are more liberal – for example, the Shi’a communities in Kandahar and Lashkar Gah cities.

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-- In the East, the land is less arable for agriculture and is more prone to natural disasters, and conservative values toward women ensue. There is enough economic pressure so that women do work in direct agriculture activities and agribusiness to help the family financially. Men believe that women play a positive role in agriculture – more so than in Kandahar – but there is still resistance to letting women work in the open. Men seem to be receptive enough to letting women advance and support agricultural sales that USAID should help to identify education opportunities and create safe spaces for them to work.

Positively, in the East, men and women are more eager for education that in the South, where traditionally Afghans only received an education when they did not have enough arable land to feed the family. (Most often, children received an education to work for the government.) Even during the Taliban regime, girls in the east went to school, especially in the province of Nangarhar, due to an agreement between the tribal elders of the area and the Taliban government.

-- In the North, there is more arable land and more pastures for livestock in the North, but there is reluctance to let women work in the higher steps of the agriculture value-chain: Men normally support women’s agriculture projects in the home, such as taking care of livestock. However, women are already part of the local economy, which allows for opportunity in including more women in agribusiness.

Many girls attend school in the North and receive university-level education, but few choose to work in the agriculture sector. There are opportunities to include educated women in the value chain as extension specialists, horticulture specialists, packaging experts and marketers – just to name a few examples.

-- In the West, the land is less arable but there is less cultural conservatism towards women’s participation in society. The area has some very good pastures for livestock -- especially in Ghor and Badghis -- making livestock one of the main agriculture products in the region. But the irrigation systems in Farah and Nimroz provinces, which are flat areas and suitable for horticulture, have suffered from drought and years of conflict and neglect.

However, there is not outright resistance to women working in agriculture, especially when they create high value crops like Saffron. Support for women’s education, too, provides opportunities for USAID to focus on cultivating high-value crops and offer more skills and training in agribusiness.

The national stakeholders we spoke with recommend strongly that any USAID-designed agriculture project must take these regional differences into context. But even after a project does take these general attitudes into consideration, the project’s implementers must work in conjunction with local government leaders and NGOs to ensure that the women selected for the projects can realistically perform the work, given their levels of education and other demands on their time. A thorough understanding of how supportive

P a g e | 10 their surrounding environment is also mandatory, as women need to work in a safe environment that the men of that specific society support.

Most of the people interviewed for this assessment are supportive of home projects that deal with livestock and horticulture. A slight majority (mostly in the East, North and West) also stated that they support women’s involvement in agri-business – if they are given the opportunity. But supplementary projects in education and job training are necessary if women are to take part in women’s only value chains, or become mainstreamed with men in other value chains. Women also need a safe place to work, and safe transportation to get there.

Last, USAID should provide long-term and systematic support for the programs – ad hoc, piecemeal pilot projects can build women’s self-esteem, but are often not sustainable.

Efforts should also continue to change men’s attitudes that women only belong in the home. Men, their families, the region and Afghanistan as a whole can benefit from women’s participation in direct agriculture activities and agribusiness, especially when agriculture is one of the main, if not the main, sources of income for most of Afghan families. There are glimpses in this report that show that men in the South and East know this already. The challenge is to make this belief more mainstream.

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3 METHODOLOGY

The methodology for this assessment included a literature review, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders at the national level, and focus group discussions in four areas – North, West, South and East – where USAID’s agriculture programs have recently been implemented.

First, the team conducted desk research that focused on a literature recently completed about the role of agriculture in Afghan society – and the role of Afghan women in agriculture. In addition, the team also reviewed program planning documents, reports, results frameworks and other strategic documents the USAID agriculture section uses to guide their programs.

Second – from Kabul – the team conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in both agriculture and women’s empowerment. These 11 individuals, all Afghan, have years of experience in working toward the inclusion of women in agriculture either through the Afghan government (at MAIL or MoWA) or through non-governmental organizations. The team also spoke in-depth with USAID staff about its six most recent projects -- and the implementing partners -- on how women were included as project implementers and beneficiaries.

Third, to gain the perspectives of thought leaders within Afghanistan’s four quadrants, the team conducted a dozen focus group discussions in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Balkh and Herat to acquire a ground-level view of attitudes towards women’s involvement in direct agriculture activities and agribusiness in their respected regions. The team also, where possible, conducted focus group discussions with both male and female beneficiaries of USAID agriculture projects. The groups consisted of six to seven participants and were conducted by Sayara’s field staff; men led the discussions with men, and women led the discussions with women. Interviews with beneficiaries, however, sometimes resulted in answers that were often general and without much nuance.

3.1 The Team

Team Leader (Expat): The team leader was responsible for the overall management of the assessment process, which included: 1) assignments of the team members during the data collection phase; 2) leading the analysis process; 3) leading the report writing and development of the recommendations related tools and documents; and 4) serving as the main liaison and focal point for the client (USAID/Afghanistan’s OAG).

Afghan Gender Specialist/Co-Team Leader (Afghan): The Afghan Gender Specialist co-led the team and was be responsible for ensuring that the entire assessment process – data collection, analysis and recommendations – was done bearing in mind the ground

P a g e | 12 realities and the lessons-learned. The most important contribution by the Afghan Gender Specialist was the institutional knowledge and lessons-learned in the past ten years. In addition, the Afghan team leader actively participated in the data collection, analysis and recommendations processes.

M&E/Research Consultant (Expat): The research/M&E consultant was responsible for developing different data collection and analysis tools, such as questionnaires for in-depth interviews and FGDs, analysis, etc and served as the research expert of the team.

M&E/Research Consultant (Afghan): The Afghan research consultant was responsible mostly for conducting the FGDs and in-depth interviews with beneficiaries and ensuring the analysis tools were developed bearing in mind the Afghan context.

Translator/Research Associate (Afghan): The team also had an expert translator to ensure proper translation of the data collected from the field. This was one of the most important positions in the team, as whether or not translation is done properly plays a big role in any assessment’s success.

Quality Controller (Afghan): Sayara’s Country Director served as the quality controller for the assessment mission and products resulted from the mission.

3.2 Limitations

The team faced some limitations in this project that lent itself to gaps, but do not detract from the key findings.

During the interviews with stakeholders at the national level, the subjects often spoke in general terms that did not distinguish how different regions’ cultures and economies affected women’s advancement. They were also hesitant to speak about agribusiness and what entry points existed – or could exist -- for women. They mainly volunteered information about poultry activities, and how they could be improved. When pressed for detail, some gave specific examples, but others did not.

While we had hoped to include both the AFSA and ILG-NRMP projects in this assessment, AFSA’s completion and ILG-NRMP’s remote location in Badakshan impeded our efforts to give thorough analysis about their effects on beneficiaries within the timeframe of the activity. We therefore opted to focus on USAID’s four largest projects: ACE/ADF, CHAMP, IDEA-NEW and S-RAD.

Another limitation was coordinating the focus group discussions with some of USAID’s implementing partners. This caused delays in completing them in Jalalabad, leaving us with three separate discussions with beneficiaries for the IDEA-NEW project (men), ACE/ADF project (women) and CHAMP (women). We were not able to complete a focus group on the IDEA-NEW women beneficiaries in Jalalabad, or any beneficiaries – male or female – in Mazar-e-Sharif.

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4 BASELINE CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURE SECTOR

FOR WOMEN

Agriculture is essential to Afghanistan’s economy, and women have traditionally played a vital role in it – especially in horticulture and livestock production.ii With 80 percent of the Afghan population living in rural areas, agriculture, according to a 2004 survey by the World Bank, contributes 53 percent to Afghanistan’s GDP and 67 percent to the labor force.iii And an estimated 54 percent of Afghanistan’s agricultural workforce is female.iv

4.1 Traditional Work

Throughout Afghanistan’s history, women have been actively involved in agriculture.

Although women living in rural areas have traditionally focused on small-scale activities that can be completed in the home. When they are able to work in larger fields, they have undertaken some of the most physically challenging work to prepare the harvest, and then cultivate the product.v

There are three main categories for Afghan women’s participation in agriculture.

1. Horticulture is the cultivation of vegetables, fruits and nuts. vi Women are traditionally engaged in harvesting and post- harvesting activities such as cleaning the land and preparing it for seeding and planting, cleaning wheat, weeding, spading, plowing – and then packing fruits and nuts for domestic and marketing processes.vii This has made significant contributions to Afghanistan’s economy: In the 1970s, Afghanistan was the world's largest exporter of dried fruit.viii Today, more than half of Afghanistan’s official exports – not including informal or illicit trade – are fresh or processed horticultural crops. Fresh grapes and raisins make up approximately 40 percent of Afghanistan’s horticultural exports and almonds make up 20 percent.ix Another high-value crop women are currently involved in growing and processing is saffron, which is still small but in-demand in the South Asia/Middle East region. x The assessment found out that Western region, specifically Herat province, is one of biggest producers of saffron and women are actively involved in its cultivation.

2. Livestock is normally kept in most rural households for the domestic consumption of meat, milk, eggs and wool. Occasionally, these products are put up for sale in the market. Women are the main tenders of the animals, and are traditionally bound to the home to care for them. Women clean and feed animals, care for them in sickness, milk them, and process the products.xi This is also an agriculture activity that women seem to be the most comfortable in participating in.

According to a Ministry of Women’s Affairs survey conducted this summer in six villages of Paghman and Istalif districts of Kabul province, most women prefer to be involved in livestock because that is their traditional role, and it is fairly easy to maintain the work since the food for livestock is available in the villages. But

P a g e | 14 that is where women’s involvement ends -- men in the family normally sell the product to market (the survey did not gauge whether or not women wanted to be part of the sale of the products). This limited interest on the part of women can also be attributed to their lack of education, and the lack of skill development opportunities.

3. Opium production, more recently, has included women, although it varies by region. In the South, women’s role is to support the men who are harvesting the poppy, such as preparing the meals for men. The “harvest” is a labor-intensive period that women can often be dragged into. In the East, women are involved in the pre- and post-harvest activities such as planting and weeding, thinning, lancing the capsules, collecting the opium, clearing the fields, breaking the capsules and removing the seeds, cleaning the seeds, and processing byproducts such as oil and soap.xii In Badakhshan, women have been paid directly for their participation in poppy cultivation.xiii While hardly exemplary, the role women play in the cultivation of opium in both the North and East shows that they have the potential to take more active roles in agriculture and work alongside men --but it requires an economic incentive for men to welcome their involvement.

4.2 “Invisible Work”

Women traditionally support the men in their families in almost every production step, but it’s men who get the credit.xiv Women have helped increase agricultural productivity and expedited the pace of the production process -- but their work, since it is bound to the home, still has little monetary value and is perceived as being part of their daily, routine tasks.xv This is especially the case in the South and the East of the country.xvi

Women’s work in agriculture in Afghanistan is not as valued as men’s.xvii According to a 2011 World Bank report, when women are paid, there is a significant wage gap between the sexes. In some cases, women are paid even less than children working in the field.

While the reports offer no clear justification for this gap, it might be because children are less restricted socially than women.

Planting Harvest Other farm work

Gathering Wood

Men* 1.69 2.08 1.86 1.54 Women* 0.86 1.26 0.93 0.81 Children* 1.22 1.05 0.90 0.72

*In USD, per day.

Most of women’s work in agriculture is also not monetized, and agriculture products women make are traded off, like a barter system. This practice, termed as ashar, is a tradition to develop stronger cohesive relationship with families.xviii

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4.3 Internal Constraints

The degree to which a woman is involved in agriculture activities outside the home is often reflective of the family’s financial status. The poorest families, who have few family-earning members and are extremely vulnerable, send their women to the field as an act of subsistence – even when it is culturally shunned.xix Widows, women with young children, or married daughters will often be required to assist with the cultivation of particular labor-intensive crops. But if there is sufficient labor in the house and/or the family is wealthy, then women are often not required to support agriculture initiatives outside the compound.xx

In addition to the wealth of the family, women are affected by the family’s traditions, religious beliefs, reproductive responsibilities, household management demands, and lack of decision-making power in the family. Although, it differs from community to community and family to family, a high percentage of women are not involved in making decisions for the family’s role in society.

Women, therefore, represent agriculture production at the grassroots level -- a small slice of the agriculture value chain that begins at the bottom. Men, on the other hand, are part of the entire value chain: They are substantially part of the production and the marketing, with women playing an invisible role.xxi But women’s ability to move forward in the value chain is also limited by external factors that exist nationwide.

4.4 External Constraints

Besides the dynamics inside the home, the environment outside the home – locations of crops, cropping patterns, ethnic affiliation, strength of the economy and educational background – contribute significantly to whether or not a woman can be active in agriculture and agribusiness, and be recognized for her work.xxii If they are able to overcome hurdles inside the home, then women have to face their communities.

There are seven other issues that afflict women’s agriculture efforts and impede them from contributing further up the value chain:

1. Conservative traditions prevent women from working in agriculture beyond homebound projects. It is not natural, in especially the South and East, to advocate for women’s rights and foster their education and growth. In most provinces throughout the country, women’s mobility is restricted as they are often considered homemakers in their communities, and it is considered inappropriate for them to enter other spaces to work.

2. Lack of education and technical knowledge for women in rural areas contributes to women’s restricted movements outside their home, and making the work more laborious than it should inside the home. Women still use manual methods for

P a g e | 16 agriculture, doing most of the tasks by hand, which absorbs much of her physical energy.xxiii

3. Lack of resources limit women from accessing services like credit, training, extension, inputs (i.e. seeds, fertilizers and equipment), and trading and marketing networks.xxiv This curtails their direct connection with the market economy that agricultural resources generate. Women traditionally do not have inheritance rights or own land – they also lack the resources or collateral to apply for credit and start a business, which limits their integration in the agricultural economy as a whole.

4. Weak Governance at the national and local level means that Afghan government officials do not properly manage the agriculture industry for efficiency, and do not create policies that support value chain development. Efforts to counter corruption in government, and in business, also are weak. Incorporating women into everyday efforts can be seen as extra work, and not as a necessity. At the district level, women are often assigned in local government positions to represent the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, but they can be chosen just to fill a quota and not be given much of a voice.

5. Lack of infrastructure – such as roads, schools, electricity, etc. – means that there is little connectivity between agricultural activities and markets in many parts of the country. And, in some areas, there are few, if any, hubs where women can come together to share knowledge and create connections. Even in areas where there are more liberal attitudes toward women, infrastructure can provide a barrier: In Badakhshan, for example, attitudes toward women are less conservative, but severe infrastructure problems restrict, or can outright block, women’s movement from one village to another.

6. Varying weather patterns, like foods and droughts can be disastrous for agriculture initiatives across the country.

7. Poor security in many parts of the country compounds all of the above challenges. In areas where there is frequent fighting, women are protected inside their homes and risk their lives venturing outside.

But the degree and extent to which these factors afflict women depend significantly on where women live. In cities like Herat, Mazar, Kabul and Jalalabad, women take a more active role in agriculture, and even work on small-scale agribusinesses. In rural areas, this is almost impossible.

4.5 Constraints by Region

In the South, USAID’s agriculture programs face large, structural problems for including and advancing women. There, involving women in licit agricultural activities is normally a success if it is at the basic, grassroots level and often involves work in the home – as

P a g e | 17 female beneficiaries take great risks to participate in programs. The basic resources women need to participate in these programs, such as land and collateral, are under men’s control. Some women often do not even have identification cards – the most basic requirement to participate that is necessary for transparency purposes. In the East, the land is less arable, but women still contribute significantly to agriculture activities. There is also more opportunity for agribusiness, but attitudes toward women are still conservative and women’s safest point of entry is seen to be at the grassroots level.

In the North and West, especially in urban areas, women are more visibly active in agriculture, and may be able to enter the value chain at the mid-level. These are places where improvements in infrastructure – such as roads, electricity and irrigation systems – have been most visible, and the business environments are more dynamic. The availability of production inputs has increased the past decade, as has men’s interest in including women to improve the family’s wealth, and overall economy. In some of these areas, women have built some cooperatives based on livestock and poultry management -

- but they still are not directly linked to larger markets.xxv

In sum, the women who have the potential of moving up the value chain in agriculture are normally living in the North or West, and close to urban areas. They often have their own land, do not have a male guardian who would provide financial support, have their communities’ support, and are part of networks with other women involved in agriculture.

In the South and East, women are more often involved in agriculture if the financial status in their family is very low and they have to work outside the home, or if they are participating in cultivating high-value crops, like poppy, where men are willing to throw mores out the window.xxvi

Of course, there are exceptions to the above. But the universe of Afghan women actively involved in agribusiness and in higher strata of the value chain is currently small. USAID can do much to identify who these women are and build from their potential, while also nurturing women who are constrained, internally and externally, to continue projects in the home.

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5 AFGHANISTAN GOVERNMENT’S COMMITMENTS TO WOMEN

At least nominally, the Afghan government is supportive of women’s development through agriculture products. Afghanistan is a signatory of the Millennium Declaration in March 2012, which includes a commitment to “Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.” The Afghan government also addresses these goals in its Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS), which incorporates gender equity as a crosscutting strategy – meaning that women should be increasingly mainstreamed into development activities. Similarly, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs wrote the National Action Plan for Women to ensure other Afghan government ministries work seriously to reduce inequalities, and prioritize the needs of women in all sectors.

5.1 Afghan National Stakeholder Perspectives

Our interviews with 11 major stakeholders in Kabul indicated that women’s involvement in direct agricultural activities and agribusiness is perceived to be very important – but, similar to what was indicated in the literature review, the constraints of conservative traditions, poor mobility, lack of infrastructure, lack of access to technology, and male-dominance of markets has meant that women face exhausting barriers. Security compounds these problems, as women are also more vulnerable when they live in volatile regions.

First, the good news: In the past 10 years, Afghan women working in agriculture have improved the quality of their poultry, livestock and food processing production in cities, where women have better access to education and markets – and an overall better level of financial independence and decision making power. USAID and other western development agencies’ agriculture programs, a majority of the stakeholders feel, are working. But they are working at the grassroots level. Women are engaged in the same traditional activities, and their ability to move up the value chain is impeded. Beekeeping, poultry, and livestock products – which women are involved in -- have small markets in the country and less opportunities for women to earn from.

5.1.1 Stakeholders’ Concerns

The stakeholders voiced five major concerns towards women’s involvement in agriculture.

Conservative culture and the dominance of certain traditions, Hussain Ali Moin, a policy and economics expert at MoWA said, causes women to not benefit financially from their work. Despite working side-by-side with men, the men own the money – the women only manage it. Nabilah Musleh, the previous gender advisor for MAIL, also believed that while the traditional roles of women in agricultural activities are mainly supportive and family-based, they are also unremunerated.

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Lack of decision-making among women, many of the interviewees said, means that women are reduced to being unpaid laborers. Their work must be valued in their own right, and promoted for male farmers to ensure that women are safe, and that they profit from participating. As the Social Service Health and Agriculture Organization director communicated, men in both conservative and more liberal areas only support activities that don’t require women to travel beyond the village, if not their home. Rustami also emphasized the necessity of buy-in from men, who need to see women as their partners, and realize the economic benefit in women taking more leadership opportunities. But the MAIL Family Economy Development Director, Nazira Rahman, emphasized that men’s existing beliefs often impedes women’s access to agricultural resources that can lessen the intensity of the work, and to training centers where they can network and learn skills.

Each interviewee also made the point that if women want to go beyond basic agricultural activities and start a business, then traditional culture is an effective barrier as women often need to get the permission of several males in order to start the actual work. And, even if they start the business, they may not always have access to markets.

Lack of market access for women is a barrier. The consensus at this high level was that there should be markets for women so they can have more control over the sale of their products. The gender director at MAIL, Adela Yosofi, said that there need to be more markets “that women can easily access, at least in terms of distance, so that they can sell their products first hand.” Marzia Rustami, program manager in Kunduz for the NGO Women and Youths for Peace and Development Organization WAYPADO, agreed. She believed that it’s feasible for women to work in small-scale agribusinesses in their villages, but due to social and cultural norms -- and transportation problems -- selling their products out of their village seems unrealistic. Collection points for women’s products, located closer to villages, she recommended, could be a stepping stone for women’s markets.

Lack of training and education for women means that they are left ignorant about the technical aspects of agriculture and the skills that would help them succeed in business.

The gender advisor for the Horticulture and Livestock Project (HLP) at MAIL, Ms.

Marzia, emphasized that training in both technologies that will improve the product, and help women market it, is necessary. On a recent visit to Ghorband district of Parwan province, Ms. Lailuma from Economic Development Department of MoWA, said that she visited women who did not have the necessary food processing skills that could improve their product; this meant the product was more perishable, and cheap. Generally, women still use manual ways of agriculture, while men have access to modern equipments and technologies.

This requires training both in and outside of Afghanistan. Nazira Rahman, MAIL’s Director of the Family Economy Department, said that there is a lack of training centers for women in the provinces where women can come and seek assistance for different problems in agriculture in a comfortable environment. Women are typically denied access to valuable information that men share only with each other. Yosefi also believed that there need to be study tours for women to countries where women have made the leap into agribusiness so they can learn from their experiences, and then adapt them into the context of Afghanistan.

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Lack of interest in getting higher education in agribusiness is another challenge for women in Afghanistan. There are thousands of girls every year who participate in the Kankor University entry exam, but very few of them choose agriculture as their field.

This deficiency means lack of women leaders in the agriculture sector for the long term.

Lack of access to capital, too, is a barrier to women’s involvement in business, according to the stakeholders. Women lack of ownership of land, and the capital to invest in land; they often do not have access to resources such as seeds, fertilizers, and agricultural equipment that could improve their products – and, in some areas where it is available, cannot access a safe training center to acquire it. Women who have their own agriculture businesses and participate in more direct agricultural activity normally have inherited land – or are filling in for a man who, because of addiction or disability, cannot fulfill his duties, said Mr. Moin from MoWA.

Lack of remuneration and recognition for women, for all the reasons above, also means that women see little incentive to further develop their skills in agriculture.

Women are often invisible when it comes to agriculture as they stay in the home; even if they are involved in agribusiness, they do not reap the profit or even the credit. In most cases, men do not recognize their efforts and deny women’s contribution to agriculture production value-chains.

One of the most outspoken critics of donor agricultural initiatives was Nabila Musleh, the previous gender advisor of MAIL. She believed that there has not yet been a successful agricultural development project that has helped women transcend beyond direct agricultural activities. Most efforts, she believed, were superficial and focused on output

– often looking for immediate results that are not sustainable, and not based on the actual needs of women. Capacity-building initiatives, she said, are often short-term, ad hoc, and do not include prior capacity assessments of women farmers. Pilot projects peripheral to mainstream gender activities only target specific groups of women in limited districts, and are not on the scale where they can make a national impact. She feared that what female farmers’ have achieved the last decade is fragile, short term and unsustainable.

Mechanisms and institutions to provide specific support for female farmers for the long term are not present. If you look at women’s role in agriculture at a national level, there are no real markets for women agricultural and livestock products -- and women’s agricultural contributions, she said, are still not being recognized. (Note: Ms. Nabila referred to donors in general terms.)

5.1.2 Stakeholders’ Suggestions

In order to go beyond direct agricultural activities, demonstrated by both MAIL and MoWA representatives, they agreed that it is important to increase opportunities for women in agribusiness, increase their access to the markets, and build their capacity for creating quality products and selling them.

But, to do any of this, successful agriculture program designs and implementers must first

P a g e | 21 understand women’s needs, and conduct a local assessment to understand the interest for the program in the community. Thoroughly understanding the challenges ahead will help USAID and its implementing partners design the project appropriate to the culture of the community, and work to gain men’s support for it.

That said, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is supportive of kitchen gardens that grow herbs; creating training centers and workspaces that have the support of communities;

and creating transportation access programs for women so that they can safely reach the training centers, and the markets. The MoWA’s gender unit head suggested that it is important to raise awareness for both men and women at a local level about the economic benefit women’s involvement in agriculture can bring. But men especially need to understand the importance of women in agriculture to understand their rights.

Adela Yousofi, the current gender director of MAIL, also pointed out that there is not a current, pervasive effort to promote gender parity within the ministry, but that she is currently working on a proposal to change that.

And both MAIL and MoWA agreed that there need to be more safe spaces for women to participate in agricultural activities outside the home and markets for women to sell their products; robust communications campaigns to change attitudes and increase men’s support to women’s participation in direct agricultural activities and agribusiness;

training in business to ensure that women know the value of their products; and training in technology so that women’s work becomes less laborious.

Nabila Musleh suggested that when women beneficiaries from agriculture projects are identified, donors should take into consideration their family burdens; levels of seriousness, commitment and skills; and, if applicable, their experience in agriculture and agribusiness to ensure their active participation and continued development in the value chain. Once the women are identified, financial support is crucial and the projects must be sustainable to help them stand on their own feet.

Donors who have strategically selected regions when deciding what projects to design and implement, Hussain Ali Moin, Policy and Economic expert of the Economic Development Department of MoWA emphasized, have also done better.xxvii The region must first have a local market, and opportunities to expand that market into neighboring provinces. While not replicable throughout the country, the Saffron project has been very successful in Herat, for instance, because Iran, which has a traditional market for Saffron, it is next door. The project was not as successful in Kapisa, because the market in the surrounding provinces was not as accessible and also the farmers did not have the skills and experience of growing it and preparing it for the market.

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6 FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION FINDINGS:

General Attitudes Toward Women in Agriculture

6.1 Kandahar (South)

The discussion with seven community leaders in Kandahar reflected the very conservative environment they live in. While they are not completely against women working in agriculture, or even agribusiness, they advised that women do not take part in projects outside of their homes.

When it comes to education, four of the participants thought that there had been great improvements in education. Three felt that there were opportunities for boys and girls, men and women. But one indicated that families do not let their women receive higher education and another stated that Kandahar does not have a secure enough environment for women to attend school. Another participant bluntly stated, “No opportunities for the women education are provided… Kandahar University it is just for boys not for girls. Our society is of Islamic and Pushtoon nature and no one of us will let their sister or daughter go and set in a co-education. So, I request the government to provide our girls a separate education system.”

Regarding women’s participation in the economy, a majority thought that women should participate more – or already do to a small extent. This is mainly through embroidery or tending to livestock in their homes. However, one participant stated the principal cultural barrier that keeps women from working, “Kandahar is a province that does not let women work, even if the family is starving. People of Kandahar have not made their women work for them so for and they will not make them work in future too.”

The majority feels that their community is against women’s involvement in agriculture outside their homes, as working in the field is too difficult or women should not travel outside their homes. One participant said, “People of Kandahar do not want their women participate in agriculture. We believe this is men’s heritage and only men can do it.” The majority thinks that that women either do not currently participate in agriculture, or tend to activities in their home. As one community leader stated, “We never permit our women to participate in agriculture.” An outlier, however, said, “If a farmer wishes to give her women share in agriculture, it will be so beneficial and will bring good changes.”

While all of them were supportive of agricultural development projects in general, the leaders themselves were generally against women’s involvement in them, unless they took place inside the home. One articulated, “I would suggest all those activities for our women that do not confront our Afghan society and; I suggest those works that our women can do in homes.” Two of them, however, recommended women growing Saffron and cotton, or vegetables.

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However, when asked if women should participate in the business side of agriculture, three of them indicated that women should – three of them said that Kandahari women should not.