Presentation by Marcella Vigner (Oxfam) at "A Learning Event for the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index," held November 21, 2013 in Washington DC.

1. Women’s Empowerment through
Collective Action?
Marcella VIGNERI –Quantitative research component
IFPRI Learning Workshop on WEAI- 21 Nov 13

2. Researching Women’s Collective Action
Research, learning and
communications Oxfam project
launched in 2009 with funding
from Gates
Builds on IFPRI work on gender and
CA-focus on CA in markets for
women
Measure economic and
empowerment impacts of CA to
identify factors of success across ag
sectors relevant for wider range of
women smallholders.

3. The research questions
Research questions:
• Q1 Which women participate in CA?
• Q2 What economic and empowerment
benefits do smallholder women derive from
collective action in ag. markets?
• Q3 How does collective action overcome
women smallholders’ constraints to
accessing and benefiting markets?

4. Objective
What empowerment benefits from
collective action in ag. markets?
compare 'empowerment' outcomes for women
farmers participating in market oriented CA
(treatment group - sample size c. 300) with
women involved in the same sectors/ activities but
not participating in CA groups
(control group - sample size c. 600).

5. Overview of Phase III Research Focus
• Mali, Ethiopia, Tanzania
– low-income countries
– strong potential for ag. development.
– Governments committed to rural econ
transformation, and
– all promoted agricultural
cooperatives.
• Shea, Honey, Vegetables
– ‘high value’ with nation-wide growth
Baseline survey:
March – June 2012
Sample size: Approx 900 women/ country:
• 300
WCA-members
• 600 not WCA-members
potential
– export potential, internationally
(honey, shea) and domestically
(vegetables),
– untapped opportunities for producers
to move up value chains.

6. Analytical Framework
Comparing
women members of WCAs
with
women non-members:
1. Treatment and Control
2. Women active in ag
sub-sector of study
3. No measurement of gender parity

7. Context for WEAI Adaption
Conceptual and Technical appeal of WEAI
1. Measuring women’s empowerment in ag markets
Indicators relevant at any geographical level
2. Menu of relevant dimensions: when is empowerment
adequate?
3. Based on individual-level data information

8. Rationale for changes made
1. Select domains and indicators suitable for project RQs
2. Adjust thresholds to allow variation across observations
to estimate impact of WCA membership on empowerment
3. Re-rank attitudinal choices
in some cases increased attitudinal threshold to ‘feels strongly’ or ‘highly
able’ ..to make an input (or actually take the decision) from original
wording: ‘feels moderately’ able
4. Actual decisions vs perceptions of choices
5. …and Timing
Design of RWCA fieldwork simultaneous to finalisation of WEAI
methods: learning process

9. Adjustments: step 1
Selection of key dimensions
Kept three dimensions:
Role in HH decision making - Access to productive capital - Decision making
Added Freedom of movement dimension
DOMAIN
weight
indicators
weight
Production
1/4
input in productive decisions
1/8
Ability to take autonomous decisions in production
1/8
ownership of assets
1/12
Resources
1/4
purchase, sale, or transfer of assets
Access to credit and decisions on credit
1/12
1/12
Income
1/4
control over use of income
1/4
Freedom to move in the village space
1/8
Freedom to attend group meetings
1/8
Freedom of Movement
1/4

10. Adjustments: step 2
‘Tuning’ thresholds to the RWCA data
EMPOWERMENT DIMENSION
INCREASE of
Threshold
REASON
Decision in agr activities
From one domain to
at least two domains.
Virtually all women were
empowered with one
domain only
Decision on income from agr
Women must feel
« highly able » to
make a decision
Threshold was too low for
quality / significance of
input in decision making
Ownership of assets
Raise to 3 small
assets or two large
asset or 2 small + at
least one large
Need to identify
empowerment as
something women
‘typically’ do not do.
Rights over agr assets
Exclude chicken and
farming equipment
from two asset
threshold
Exclude things women
‘typically’ own anyway
Decision on HH exp
Feel « highly able » to
make a decision, on
at least one domain
(the latter is kept from
original)
Threshold was too low in
terms of quality or
significance of input in
decision making (but
number of domains is
kept)

11. Adjustments: step 3
Autonomy vs Actual decision making
Measured actual decision making rather than
autonomy in decision making
Original wording of WEAI questionnaires did not work in the field (time
constraints + time frame of actual survey exercise)
RWCA measures the ‘formal’ ability to make
decisions rather than ‘autonomy’
Derived Independence in Decision-making
Index (IDMI)

12. Illustration 1 MALI
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Members
Non-members

13. Illustration 2 TANZANIA
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Members
Non-members

14. Illustration 3 ETHIOPIA
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Members
Non-members

15. What empowerment benefits?
• No systematic relationship between WCA membership
and empowerment domains
• Income gains not systematically associated with higher
levels of empowerment
– Women members are significantly more empowered than
non-members in only some dimensions of empowerment
(between 1 and 3 out of 8 in each country)

16. Food for Thoughts
Using empowerment measures
Methodology: Adapting WEAI
1. Practicality in the field
2. Adequacy indicators thresholds
adjusted upwards ..
but how to calibrate
3. Aggregation: does it work and/or
challenges for this type of
research?
4.
Decision making vs. autonomy
Issues
Do more empowered women self-select into groups
Causality/endogeneity problems?

17. THANK YOU
Final report available @
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/womens-collectiveaction-unlocking-the-potential-of-agricultural-markets-276159