Women and Livestock                             

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), livestock are cared for by both men and women, contribute to the health and socioeconomic wellbeing of households and communities and provide nutritious food and income. But interventions to improve livestock health and productivity may ignore gender differences and may lead to further inequalities. Gender inequality is both a root cause of intergenerational poverty and intensifies other causes such as age, ethnicity and caste exclusion, and physical causes such as climate change (Kabeer, 2015). While productive livestock can elevate smallholders out of poverty, good data are needed to optimize strategies and investments that can support the livestock sector for both men and women.

Women constitute the majority of poor livestock keepers in LMICs (FAO, 2011). Yet, women have more limited control over productive resources needed to raise livestock; have restricted access to livestock services and inputs; and occupy the less lucrative nodes of the livestock value chain when compared to their male counterpart. This has two important implications: 1. Unless women livestock keepers are empowered, the livestock sector will lag behind — and benefits to livelihoods and nutrition remain limited. 2. Livestock itself is a good entry point to support the empowerment of women given that they are already heavily involved in the sector and they can control livestock more easily than other assets. 

To achieve gender equality in the livestock sector, it is essential to empower women (Galiè et al., 2019), not only to earn income but also to increase their ability to influence decision-making within the home and in the public sphere. Gender and inclusivity are prioritized in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Increasingly, the success of agriculture and development initiatives is determined by how well they account for, and address, gender differences in access and control of resources, time use and freedom from domestic violence. 

In recent years, livestock project funders have asked for more gender responsive programs to close gender data gaps, and private investors have shown cautious interest in how being gender responsive affects their business opportunities and corporate social responsibility commitments. But knowledge is limited on understanding the best universal and local indicators for success, and on measuring the effects of gender responsive interventions on households, communities and countries.

Gender-disaggregated data on women’s empowerment are essential to identify key challenges and opportunities in livestock-related development, yet it is challenging to obtain timely, high-quality gender data for planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning.  Despite recent efforts to improve the gender content of national statistics and research databases, gaps still exist in databases, published statistics and metadata due to unstandardized definitions, research methods and reporting. Understanding the gender dynamics behind such gender-disaggregated data — for example, the gender-based beliefs and customs that affect the gender division of labor in the household (e.g., women milk and men sell the milk because men only can frequent public spaces such as the market), or the gendered access to and control over resources (e.g., cattle are a species that belong to older men only; women can manage chickens) — is essential to understand how to address gender-based constraints in livestock. Yet, gender-sensitive analysis is (relatively) rarely undertaken. 

A Community of Practice 

To respond to these gaps and demands, a Gender and Livestock Data community of practice (CoP) was established by the Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) network, together with members of the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) gender team. The LD4D network, hosted by SEBI-Livestock, brings together a wide range of parties to collaborate on new and innovative livestock data solutions. 

Established in March 2022, the Gender and Livestock Data CoP aims to improve understanding about collecting, analyzing and interpreting livestock and gender data. The CoP is exploring a diverse range of topics related to the planning, monitoring and assessment of gendered outcomes in livestock-related projects, such as the selection of indicators for use along livestock value chains, and the practical challenges in improving the granularity of gender-disaggregated data. Members have identified specific challenges of measuring benefits to, and the empowerment of, women, recognizing that simply recording their participation in project activities can be both limited and misleading. Members are eager to develop capacity to access and deploy the methods and tools available to promote gender equality, but find it difficult to know where to start.

CoP Membership 

The CoP is open to anyone working on livestock development and gender, including animal health professionals and researchers, program directors, Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation experts, and anyone interested in making livestock development projects more gender equitable and impactful.  The CoP provides a platform where members can connect and learn from shared experiences, both positive and negative, and discuss the topics that they want to learn about, via presentations and panel discussions on collecting, analysing and interpreting livestock and gender data.

Members are invited to join these informal and inclusive interactive discussion sessions every two months, hosted by livestock and gender experts Beth Miller (SEBI-Livestock) and Alessandra Galiè (ILRI). Members have direct input into the content of the CoP, as well as the more structured community conversation meetings hosted by LD4D.

Future Plans

At the wrap-up session for 2022, members were asked about the topics they would like to discuss that will inform content going forward. Topics we intend to discuss include steps for operationalizing gender, distinguishing between accommodative and transformative gender approaches, budgeting for gender in projects and engaging men in gender discussions. We are currently developing an online community platform as a place to connect and collaborate and a repository for resources on gender and livestock. The CoP will generate proposals for knowledge products that address specific decision-maker needs. In this case, members would form working groups to collaboratively develop such outputs.

Joining the CoP  

If you wish to become a member, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]. Join us and connect with the community. We look forward to welcoming you!