USAID launched its Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index during the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York yesterday. The Index, developed under the US Government’s Feed the Future initiative, will help capture women’s empowerment and inclusion levels in the agricultural sector by looking at such areas as time burdens, community leadership, and control over income and resources. It also measures women’s empowerment relative to the men within their households.
By looking beyond indicators like income and education, the Index aims to present a more precise picture that can help national governments and development partners better monitor the effectiveness of their efforts towards empowering women in the global fight against hunger and poverty.
At the launch in New York, FAO Deputy Director-General Ann Tutwiler welcomed the initiative as an “important contribution”:
“We all agree on the need to have better metrics to both measure our progress, but more importantly, to identify where the needs are.
“As development professionals, we want to do everything, and we want to do everything everywhere. Being able to identify where the biggest intervention points are is important for governments, donors and development agencies.”
Developed in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative of Oxford University, the Index has been piloted in Bangladesh, Guatemala and Uganda.
Read more on the USAID Impact blog.
