ABSTRACT
Gender inequalities continue to undermine the sustainable and inclusive development of the agriculture sector, causing disparities in development outcomes between women and men. These are largely due to the fact that rural women are often constrained by unequal access to productive resources and services, even though evidence has shown that when women control income, they spend more of it on food, health, clothing, and education for their children than men do (FAO 2011). The limitations women face in turn impose huge social, economic, and environmental costs on society as a whole and on rural development in particular, including lags in agricultural productivity (Hill 2011). The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2013 (World Economic Forum 2013) shows that productivity on women’s farms is significantly lower per hectare compared to men’s, ranging from 13 percent in Uganda to 25 percent in Malawi. In a bid to address this gender gap, women’s empowerment in agriculture and its measurement has been a focus of many research and development organisations in the recent past, and the development of tools and methods for measuring women’s empowerment has therefore been growing.
