GENDER

Why are land rights so important to rural women? Quite simply, land is the most valuable asset among many rural people and households, as land is the foundation of rural livelihoods.

The call, announced in August, invited CGIAR researchers to submit proposals on gender relations vis-a-vis technological and institutional innovation, with a focus on gender dynamics in seed systems. Five selected projects will be carried out during the next 18 months and will be co-funded by Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) through the Gender Platform and other CGIAR research programs involved.

Is women's participation in the household decisionmaking a good indicator that they also have individual decision-making power? Does autonomy equal empowerment? The new discussion paper by Greg Seymour (PIM/IFPRI) and Amber Peterman (UNICEF Innocenti) seeks to bridge existing gaps in understanding the measurement of women's autonomy through examples from Bangladesh and Ghana.

Tenure security is believed to be critical in spurring agricultural investment and productivity. Yet what improves or impedes tenure security is still poorly understood. The new paper by Hosaena Ghebru and Isabel Lambrecht analyses the main factors associated with farmers’ perceived tenure security in Ghana.

Three new working papers just published by the World Bank Group analyze the three key constructs in women’s empowerment: time use, women’s agency, and ownership and control of assets. The papers are part of a broader collaboration among several researchers to improve the measurement of these constructs, known both for their centrality in the current policy debate on gender equality and for the challenges posed by their measurement.

The new IFPRI discussion paper reviews the literature on women's land rights (WLR) and poverty reduction. It adapts the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP) conceptual framework to identify pathways by which WLR could reduce poverty and increase wellbeing of women and their households in rural areas.

Women contribute important insights in agricultural research. Whether as government researchers, university professors, or senior research managers, their perspectives are

The paper presents the abbreviated version of the WEAI, summarizing the modifications to the original index and discussing possibilities for further development of empowerment metrics based on the WEAI.

Participation in household decisions and control over assets are often used as indicators of bargaining power. Yet spouses do not