Levelling the Field: Improving Opportunities for Women Farmers in Africa

"Levelling the Field: Improving Opportunities for Women" is a new policy report jointly produced by the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab and The ONE Campaign.  The report contributes to the debate on poverty and agriculture by comprehensively documenting the gender gaps and by prioritizing ares for actions to help policymakers makes decisions that will sensibly improve the well-being of their constituents. 

There is a growing recognition of agriculture's potential to spur growth and reduce poverty in Africa. Agriculture accounts for one-third of the continent's gross domestic product (GDP), and two-thirds of its citizens rely on the sector for their incomes. Investments in agriculture will hence not only improve productivity and the continent's ability to feed a growing population, but will also lift families out of poverty. Over 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's extreme poor are engaged in agriculture, and growth originating in the sector is 2-4 times more effective at directly reducing poverty than growth originating in other sectors. Yet agriculture in Africa has not fulfilled its potential, suffering from a lack of investment and insufficient attention from policy-makers. A key hindrance to agricultural development and broader growth is a wide and pervasive gender gap in agricultural productivity. Women comprise nearly half of the labor force in Africa's agriculture sector, and more than half in several countries, but on the whole they produce less per hectare than men. Existing evidence from small-scale studies across the continent documents the numerous disadvantages that women face in accessing the same resources, training, markets and opportunities as men. They also face ingrained norms and institutional barriers that further widen the gap. Tackling the barriers that hold back the productivity of female farmers could both enhance gender equality and usher in broader economic growth. The African Union has declared 2014 to be the 'year of agriculture and food security', bringing much needed attention to the sector's potential to transform the continent. This is an opportunity not only to revitalize the agriculture sector, but to rally African governments and development organizations to commit to concrete policy action to redress the inequalities within the sector, and in so doing to reap greater rewards from future investments.

The report is accessible through this link

The Chronic Poverty Report 2014-2015: The road to zero extreme poverty

With the debate on the post-2015 development framework in full swing, the third international Chronic Poverty Report addresses one key question: what needs to be done to get to (or close to) zero extreme poverty by 2030 – the new goal for global poverty reduction?

The report is the first produced by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN), the successor to the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), which produced the first two Chronic Poverty Reports. Drawing on ten years of research by the CPRC and others, and on recent policy guides from CPAN, it presents new analysis of what it takes to sustain escapes from poverty; of countries that have succeeded in tackling chronic poverty; and new projections of poverty in 2030.

It presents a tripartite challenge to the world: to get close to zero extreme poverty countries need to tackle chronic poverty, stop impoverishment and ensure that those who manage to escape from poverty sustain their escapes (the poverty ‘tripod’). It also raises the spectre that there may remain a billion people living in extreme poverty in 2030 unless existing policies are implemented robustly and new policies and political commitments are up and running by 2020.

The bulk of the report focuses on the policies needed to get to zero. While there are many such policies, any country could and should be able to generate a selection of the key policies that will work with the national grain, and the report offers a device – the impoverishment index – to help countries determine the priorities that will carry their citizens out of poverty.