Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the research project about?

This research project looks at successful ways of addressing common problems for women in accessing and applying agricultural and enterprise training in rural areas and identifies practical ways to overcome barriers to training for women smallholders. Using this information, CSD developed a series of practical recommendations which can help practitioners, policy makers and donors to develop projects which have the greatest benefit for rural communities.

2. Why did CSD choose this area?

CSD’s remit is to help enhance social and economic prosperity internationally through skills development. Agriculture is a key focus of the rural development agenda and women now make up the majority of the agricultural workforce in developing countries.

In the face of increasingly volatile agricultural conditions it is important that the rural poor and particularly women are equipped with the skills to cope and adapt to ensure food security and improve income levels. There is a gap in knowledge in the development and skills communities, in terms of identifying practical approaches to overcoming the barriers for women in accessing and applying training.

3. What is agricultural extension?

Agricultural extension can be broadly defined as the development of agricultural knowledge and skills among farmers, aimed at increasing their productivity and realising other desirable changes such as market access.

4. Why the focus on women?

Women now make up the majority of the agricultural sector in developing countries, but they are less able to access agricultural training in comparison to men and often do not retain income or assets from their agricultural labour. In the face of changing and increasingly erratic agricultural conditions, it is increasingly important for women, as the primary producers, to respond innovatively and to be adaptable, in order to ensure food security and the productivity of the agricultural sector in developing countries. The right kind of training is very important in supporting women to adopt forward-looking, responsive attitudes and actions.

5. What are the benefits of this project?

CSD intends that this project will:

Fill an important gap in knowledge around skills and agriculture.

Help policy makers in developing countries and international donor agencies to target resources and funding towards projects which have the greatest possible benefit for local economic and social prosperity.
Help practitioners to develop training which will have the greatest possible benefit for local economic and social prosperity.
Enable the issues raised in the research to be disseminated to a wide range of partners and thereby to increase international interest in this area.
Feed directly into existing projects to enhance the productivity of their programmes.

6. What were CSD’s research questions?

The main research question was as follows:

What aspects of the agricultural training process enable women smallholders to introduce successful changes into their productive and management activities, and how can they be supported to introduce these changes?

Sub questions included:

What are the major challenges and opportunities that women smallholders face?
What challenges and opportunities encourage women smallholders to engage with training?
What kinds of training do they find more useful, and less useful?
What contextual factors are necessary in order for women to be able to make productive use of their training?
How does training interact with other contextual factors which affect women's ability to introduce beneficial changes, such as status, capital and land access?
What changes can be noted from successful training projects to women, their families and their local communities?

7. How did CSD carry out this project?

The project started with a literature review to identify the key themes and issues that should be informing the research.
The next stage involved an examination of a broad range of existing projects internationally, to identify the factors that make projects successful or unsuccessful. Evaluations of a small number of these projects were examined in greater detail to explore the success factors in more depth.
Scoping visits were undertaken to verify feasibility and to inform the questionnaire and interview design.
Following this, questionnaires and interview tools were designed to gather field data from the project managers, groups and individual women members of the groups. In-country research assistants were also identified to help facilitate the interviews.
Field research was then undertaken to understand how the array of factors identified in earlier stages actually work on the ground and in relation to contextual factors.
The results of all of these stages are available in the final report, which also offers recommendations as to how projects can be improved on the ground. CSD will be seeking to promote these recommendations with existing projects, development agencies and policy makers and will be using them to underpin our own skills development projects in this area.

8. What are the project outputs and who are these aimed at?

The primary output from the project is a report which, as noted above, provides a set of recommendations for successful projects, but also an understanding of how these factors can work on the ground and in conjunction with restrictive contextual factors in poor rural areas.

The recommendations from the report are aimed primarily at policy makers, international agencies/donors and project developers. A vast amount of money has been spent, and in many circumstances wasted on investment in poorly developed and irrelevant programmes. The recommendations from the report will assist these groups to develop training programmes which are relevant to the rural poor and give a good return on investment.

9. When do you expect the results to be available?

The final report is available now, please click here to download a copy. We will also be using the recommendations from the report to underpin further skills development projects in this area. In addition CSD will be seeking to promote these recommendations with existing projects, development agencies and policy makers.

10. Which countries were involved in the project and why?

We have included a broad range of developing countries in the literature review and review of practice from across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Three countries were part of the initial scoping visits - Ghana, South Africa and India - and the knowledge gained from all three fed into the final report. CSD chose to have two countries involved in the field research in order to focus the recommendations. Ghana and India were selected for the primary research on the basis of a broad project selection criteria and the initial scoping visits, which looked at the country's:

Need for the project (e.g. the percentage of the population employed in agriculture).
Potential to benefit from the project (e.g. access to credit/microfinance).
Fit with CSD's strategic objectives (e.g. potential to enhance economic and social prosperity).

11. What impact will this research have?

The aim of the research was to develop a better understanding of how successful extension can affect women in agriculture, and how it interacts with other contextual factors. The practical outcome of the research is an analysis of how extension programmes can be improved practically, and how good practice can be spread more widely to improve outcomes. There are a series of recommendations for policy makers, donor agencies and practitioners which are intended ultimately to help improve practice, and deliver improved agricultural and enterprise training programmes for women. Delivering the surveys to project co-ordinators, trainers and trainees (current and past) provided insight into the differences between assessment of the needs of the women and the training impact for these different groups, and helped to improve their alignment.

12. How can CSD have an impact when it is not based in either of the countries involved in the field research?

The research is not solely relevant to the projects studied during the fieldwork. CSD was interested in practical issues for women in accessing and applying training and looked to understand the links, processes and supporting factors which encouraged women to become involved in training and be able to make use of the information gained. This information is relevant to projects throughout the developing world. The second phase of the research, was an international review of existing and past projects from across Africa and Asia which identified the factors that made these projects successful or unsuccessful and this broadens the applicability of the findings.

13. How can I keep up to date with the project/how can I get further information?

This website will be updated throughout the year as CSD continues to work with policy makers, international agencies/donors and project developers to improve the support and funding of agricultural and enterprise training for women smallholders.

For further information or if you would like to get involved in the project please contact either:
Kathleen Collet - kathleen.collett@skillsdevelopment.org
Chris Gale - chris.gale@skillsdevelopment.org

Project Case Studies

Key Findings

Final Report

Frequently Asked Questions