Resources

In order to obtain detailed information about project participants's daily tasks, particularly in a gender context, 139 calenders were constructed for one specific day. The timeline focused on all the activities undertaken during that day, including agricultural work. Men did more agricultural work than women, although women worked harder overall. Of the 103 agricultural workers surveyed, the men spent more time with livestock, both were involved in nursery work, and men carried out slightly more work in the fields. The other projects studied were water and santitation, women's income generating projects and education. The gender difference in perception of agricultural tasks is noted, which relates closely to time spent talking, resting and in 'reproductive' chores.

This case study examines gender roles and rural livelihood systems in Pwani, a recently populated resettlement village on the western edge of Lake Nakuru Park in Kenya. The objective of the research was to understand the ways in which natural resources are managed in the community and within the household, with emphasis on the institutions and individuals who make and carry out management decisions, particularly as distinguished by gender. PRA was one of several methodologies used to carry out the research. Spatial data was obtained through transects, village sketch maps and farm sketches. Time lines, trend lines and seasonal calendars provided time-related data. Social data was gathered through household interviews and diagrams of village institutions. By linking gender-focused research and PRA it was possible to learn about gender within the context of the community's history, its future aspirations and its resource management and development problems.

This four-part video aims to merge recent developments in PRA with existing conceptual frameworks on gender to provide a practical and thorough approach to gender analysis in natural resource management. It is intended as a training tool to enable fieldworkers to understand and incorporate gender issues in their work. The first section gives a summary of the analytical framework subsequently illustrated by three case studies. It is structured as a series of short themed segments (2-10 mins) which allow trainers to select what suits their specific training objectives and to stimulate discussion on related topics. The trainers' guide provides extensive suggestions for the use of each segment (34 mins). The following sections present three case studies from different cultural and environmental contexts. They demonstrate several PRA methods in detail and can be used in a training context as fieldwork examples, or for more in-depth exercises. The case studies are accompanied by hand-outs in the trainer's guide. The first case study looks at the use of coastal mangroves and other natural resources by women and men in two neighbourhoods near Karachi, Pakistan. The methods demonstrated include natural and social resource mapping, venn diagrams, a matrix of income sources, a pie diagram of fuel use, and a matrix of fuelwood types (28 mins). The second study of natural resource use and management issues in two villages in Burkina Faso shows seasonal calendars, transects, a matrix of land-use types, natural and social resource mapping, and a flow diagram (28 mins). The third case study explores biodiversity in forests and agriculture, historical change, and land use and management issues in Brazil. It demonstrates the use of seasonal calendars, transects, flow diagrams on deforestation and the impact of medicinal plants on local work, and a matrix of maize varieties (28 mins).

This report provides an assessment of the extent of and changes in poverty in Kenya during the '80s and early '90s. It uses data from different sources and of different kinds, including was a Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) and a Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS). Interestingly, in three out of five districts the results yielded by the two approaches were almost identical. The PPA provided critical insights on a number of issues - people's perceptions of the extent and causes of poverty, the status of women, the extent of and reasons for low school enrolment, the reasons for not using public health facilities and the ways in which poor people cope with food insecurity and drought. Methods used included social mapping and wealth ranking, interviews and focus groups discussions. The different chapters present the findings of the study, focusing on economic development and poverty; revitalising the rural economy; structural transformation in agriculture; social sector spending (education and health); food security and nutrition; and targeted programmes and institutional factors. A strategy of programmes and policies for poverty reduction is suggested.

This paper follows from the recognition that meeting food needs requires that women's roles in production and food systems are taken into account. International agricultural research centres have paid little attention to the demands of domestic post-harvest technologies, being given a low priority in the determination of research agenda. Gender-specific varietal preferences for seed or stock selection have also been ignored. In addition to methodological weaknesses built into current research programming, insufficient attention has been paid to the institutional barriers which inhibit the exchange of experience and information between women and agricultural researchers and extension agents. The paper begins by suggesting why gender matters. The second section discusses seed technology and gender issues. The third section raises questions of methodology (discussing socio-economic research, farming systems research and policy research). [This section may be of particular interest to PRA collection users]. Further sections discuss research-extension linkages, and the measurement of inputs. The final three sections are case studies of the impact of technical change in agriculture on women in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.