Gendered barriers and opportunities in Kenya's informal dairy sector: enhancing gender-equity in urban markets

Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: Innovations and evidence

“…Women can own livestock—particularly smaller species—more easily than other assets (such as land and machinery); they can control the revenues generated from their livestock often without consulting men; livestock help women satisfy their traditional role as nutrition providers by providing animal source foods on a daily basis; women can invest in livestock to build their asset base in the absence of other financial institutions accessible to them; and finally, women can use their livestock to address crises by selling them in case of an urgent need for cash or keeping them in case of divorce ( Galiè et al, 2022a ). Livestock businesses, like the sale of milk and eggs, can also provide income-generating opportunities that are often scarce for rural or peri-urban women ( Galiè et al, 2022b ).…”

“…Men own larger and more valuable species than women do; women do not access animal health services, with negative impacts on the productivity of their animals ( Enahoro et al, 2021 ); women tend to lose control over livestock-generated income in favor of men when this becomes lucrative ( Tavenner et al, 2019 ). Market-oriented livestock farming requires business interactions with men outside their kinship networks, which women are discouraged from by long-standing tradition in contexts characterized by norms restricting women's mobility; this reduces their access to input and output services, markets, and other income-generating opportunities ( Price et al, 2018 ; Galiè et al, 2022b ).…”

Women’s Empowerment, Income, and Nutrition in a Food Processing Value Chain Development Project in Touba, Senegal

“…As noted, in polygamous households, co-wives can come into conflict with the study’s women processors/retailers due to jealousy and the obligation to rotate cooking days for the household. Such diversity among women and across households should be considered in projects so that all women can equitably access (lucrative) value chains, especially those with gender-sensitive goals and VCD projects [ 15 , 82 ]. The women in our study suggested that they need help to find cooks to hire so that women can work outside of the home without upsetting the dynamics between co-wives as well as meeting the housework expectations of their husbands.…”

“…This is, of course, aspirational; however, a VCD project that ascribes to a mission of women’s empowerment and gender equality could aspire toward women’s collective empowerment in the long term. Naila Kabeer’s work on women’s empowerment and theories of change are particularly insightful when thinking about how development projects could aspire to long-term transformative changes [ 73 , 86 ] (see also [ 82 ] on transformative change).…”

Can a gender-sensitive integrated poultry value chain and nutrition intervention increase women's empowerment among the rural poor in Burkina Faso?

“…Additionally, lessons learned across a wide range of studies demonstrate that there are significant barriers to women's integration into markets. In a study of milk traders in peri-urban Nairobi, Kenya, Galiè and colleagues ( 2022 ) found that milk retail businesses were more profitable for men, compared to women, because of the difficulties that women experienced sourcing milk. Constraints on women's freedom of movement and their agency over how they spend their time leads them to purchase milk at higher prices and puts them at the risk of purchasing spoiled milk.…”