Just a few years ago, there was a dearth of information about women’s empowerment in agriculture. Today, thanks in large part to the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), there is a lot more, rich data about women’s empowerment in the sector. Collecting and analyzing the information is only one, albeit critical, step towards women’s empowerment. The next step is deciding what actions to take based on the available information. This is where the Feed the Future Gender Integration Framework (GIF) comes into play.

The GIF can help missions and partners use data collected through the WEAI and other sources to understand and prioritize women’s empowerment constraints, inform strategic plans, and monitor and evaluate outcomes. For a relatively simple framework, the GIF packs a powerful punch.

The GIF uses seven domains of empowerment that are linked to household agricultural productivity: agricultural decision-making, access to and control over resources, control over income, leadership, time use, human capital, and access to technology. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) measures the first five GIF domains. Missions and partners can plug data into the framework to map planned and future activities as well as identify gaps. The GIF can also be used to identify and track indicators that measure priority outcome areas.

There are many great resources available on the GIF, including the Feed the Future GIF 101 Agrilinks site, which hosts a 1-minute video overview of the tool, training session clips, and blank and completed GIF frameworks.

Still a little unclear about the relationship between the WEAI and the GIF? This blog and the visual below explain the relationship in simple terms.