Gender and Development

My major work project for the last couple of weeks has been an article for the quarterly bulletin about MCA-Armenia and gender. The MCC policy states that each Compact Country utilize an analysis of gender differences in program development, design, implementation and monitoring. MCC recognizes that many countries with high levels of gender inequality also experience high levels of poverty. I interviewed one of the subcontracting consultants, read the MCC policy and the consultant’s baseline study, reviewed relevant portions of the MCA-Armenia web site, compiled success stories from a number of sources, wrote a lengthy feature article, and, as a bonus, refreshed my Excel skills to make some pie charts to accompany the piece.

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that women have minor roles in agriculture in Armenia. Often the title to a family farm is in the husband’s name, giving the wife little access to credit or training. The women will do land preparation and planting, but the men do most of the heavy work and the work that requires equipment. On the other hand, women are sometimes involved in the household-level decisions and can influence what crops are grown. And there are a fair number of men-absent (working in another country, perhaps) women-headed farms.

The study set a target that at least 10 percent of all trained farmers be female. The consultant accomplished this by hiring a female trainer and female coordinators to find the trainees. They held trainings for women in schools, where women felt comfortable, rather than in municipality offices. They made it a priority to reach women, and as a result, 24 percent of those trained were female, and 17 percent of the demonstration farms (which show best practices to others) are female-owned. The targets and results differ by marz – in more conservative regions of the country, they barely made the 10 percent target. Women also make up 10 percent of those who received improved access to credit through MCA-Armenia.

The consultant found that in general, women are more open to the suggestions from the training, especially the environmental information – that is, when told about the health risks of certain fertilizers and pesticides, they switched to more environmentally-friendly options (or influenced their husband to switch). Women are also employees of the Post-Harvest Processing and Marketing companies that take produce from the farms and process or store it, often working in the laboratories. Several of the farmer groups established during the program have women members. And MCA-Armenia is now partnering with the UN Food Programme to ensure sustainability.

I was on the Gender and Development committee in Morocco, so this topic was right up my alley; soon I’ll post some information about gender roles in general from Culture Smart Armenia. This article was something I could really dig into, but I also had other work – one task was wordsmithing the writeup of the MCC CEO’s visit for the web site; an ongoing project is the tweaking of the English on the web site. I also drafted some fact sheets on demo sites, collection centers and adoption of techniques. And I met with the Environmental and Social Impact team about some success stories they want me to write for them. As promised, the atmosphere around MCA-Armenia is less stressful now that the CEO visit is over – and also as promised, my workload has picked up!