Women play important roles at different nodes of both agricultural and off-farm value chains, but in many countries their contributions are either underestimated or limited by prevailing societal norms or gender-specific barriers. We use primary data collected in Asia (Bangladesh, Philippines) and Africa (Benin, Malawi) to examine the relationships between women’s empowerment, gender equality, and participation in a variety of local agricultural value chains that comprise the food system. We find that the value chain and the specific node of engagement matter, as do other individual and household characteristics, but in different ways depending on country context. Entrepreneurship—often engaged in by wealthier households with greater ability to take risks—is not necessarily empowering for women; nor is household wealth, as proxied by their asset ownership. Increased involvement in the market is not necessarily correlated with greater gender equality. Education is positively correlated with higher empowerment of both men and women, but the strength of this association varies. Training and extension services are generally positively associated with empowerment but could also exacerbate the inequality in empowerment between men and women in the same household. All in all, culture and context determine whether participation in value chains—and which node of the value chain—is empowering. In designing food systems interventions, care should be taken to consider the social and cultural contexts in which these food systems operate, so that interventions do not exacerbate existing gender inequalities.

Relationships between district and community levels of government and CSOs and NGOs (according to district and community level respondents) .

No abstract

Success of nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes targeted to women may be influenced by increased demands on women's and other household members' time and by time-related trade-offs to accommodate programme participation. However, evidence of how such programmes impact time use and whether changes in timerelated demands negatively influence maternal or child health and nutrition outcomes is limited. This paper examines the impact of Helen Keller International's Enhanced Homestead Food Production programme in Burkina Faso (2010-2012) on women's and men's time use and associations between changes in women's time use and maternal and child health and nutrition outcomes. We used quantitative data from a cluster-randomized controlled trial (baseline 2010, endline 2012) and qualitative data from two rounds of process evaluation (2011, 2012). Two-stage analyses were used to first assess programme impacts on women's and men's time use using differencein-difference impact estimates and second to evaluate whether programme impacts on women's time use were associated with changes in women's and children's health and nutrition outcomes. Programme impacts were considered significant if corrected P < 0.01, and associations were considered significant if p < 0.05 and p < 0.01. Qualitative data were analysed through manual coding and by calculating the means and standard deviations for the time spent by women and men on activities in intervention and control groups. Findings show that the programme significantly increased the amount of time women spent on agriculture in the intervention compared to the control group, but this was not associated with changes in maternal or child health or nutrition outcomes. Process evaluation data supported these findings. K E Y W O R D S agriculture, Burkina Faso, children, nutrition, time use, women's health 1 | INTRODUCTION There is a growing interest in understanding how nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes in lower-and middle-income countries (LMICs) affect maternal and child health and nutrition outcomes. These programmes are posited to reduce maternal and child undernutrition through multiple pathways, such as food intake, income, price dynamics and women's participation in agriculture (Ruel & Alderman, 2013; Ruel,

No abstract