RE: Are agriculture programs supporting women to improve their livelihood? | Eval Forward

As I review the continued emphasis on women in agriculture and other development efforts I have a couple overall concerns.

First the emphasis on women empowerment has an undercurrent that most women are in an adversarial relationship with their partners. Thus my question is what percent of women in rural smallholder communities are in a adversarial relationship and in need of assistance vs. what percent are in a more collaborative relationship with their partners? I would think the majority of women are in a more collaborative relationship.  This then leads to, if most women are in a collaborative relationship with their partners what percent of the communities women are interested in participating in an empowering activities vs. continuing to operate collaboratively with their partners.

Second, given that domestic chores of child raising, cooking, collecting water and fuel are largely the responsibility of women and these daily activities have priority over economic activities, what percent of women time and energy are consumed in meeting the daily domestic chores, leaving how much time to assist in economic activities either in collaborative with their partners or independent as part of an empowerment project. I would suspect that most of the time and energy are consumed with domestic chores with very little time available for economic activities. This then leads to question as what percent of the women in a community will get involved with empowerment efforts, vs. continuing to work in collaboration with their partners.

Just a couple of initial thoughts.

Thank you.