A great deal of the World Congress on Agroforestry, held in New Delhi, focused on business: How to link smallholders to markets? How to make agroforestry profitable? How to engage major corporations? How to guarantee social and environmental sustainability while making money?

Some of the liveliest discussions involved high-profile executives and entrepreneurs, including a panel with Howard Shapiro, chief agricultural officer of Mars Inc.; Bernard Giraud, president of Danone’s Livelihoods Venture, Tristan Lecomte, founder and CEO of the Pur Project; and the noted Indian entrepreneur and sustainable-business advocate Ranjit Barthakur. In breakout sessions, we explored the viability of trees as crops, looked into biofuels as a reliable energy source and discussed quantification of environmental services.

A consistent message was that farmers can’t do it alone, especially if they’re also growing food for their families. Building successful agroforestry systems, requires scientific expertise, business savvy and access to markets, robust policies and infrastructure, and NGO support to advocate for farmers and help with training and facilitation. It’s a team effort, and it takes a lot of resources.

Read full blog

(published on the website of SIANI, Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative)

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Related Story:

Business – smallholder relationships: true commitment or false promises?

Landscape in Tanzania. Photo by Paul Stapleton/ICRAF

In order to realize implementation of a landscape approach, a dynamic combination and interaction of factors is involved. At a Landscape session during the World Congress on Agroforestry, discussions focused on key areas involving actual implementing case studies, need forsynergies between mitigation and adaptation in policy, innovative community-driven institutional platforms, and governance.

 A comparative study looking at 191 Integrated Landscape Initiatives in Latin America and Africa showed that while in both regions the motivation for adopting landscape approach are sustainable environmental protection, enhancing food security and agricultural productivity; in Latin America, where the practice has been conducted for a longer time than Africa, incentives go further to include reducing negative agriculture impacts.

 In both places, the initiative involves stakeholder groups, government, producers, marginalized groups and non-governmental organizations inside and outside the landscape. Groups studied cited tangible outcomes including improved skills and governance structures as success factors and lack of funding, proper infrastructure, proper policies, government and private sector involvement as challenges to a landscape approach.

In Sri Lanka, effort is underway to reclaim degraded land where forest has been cleared for tea and coffee farming since the 1800s. Challenges to deal with currently as the project is implemented include quick win commercial ventures and lack of native planting material.

When looking at policy frameworks that implement a landscape approach, emphasis was made on the need to synergize mitigation and adaptation as opposed to looking at the two streams separately.  The example of environmental service in Suba, Ethiopia was used to illustrate the domino effect between the two approaches. For instance, failure to adapt to drought and flooding in the region creates a knock on effect on mitigation as communities are forced to move into productive forest areas where they clear the forest for increased farm productivity. On the other hand, failure to mitigate leads to high carbon emissions that in turn lead to either drought or flooding, making it harder to adapt. To synergize, multifunctional landscape level actions are needed.

In Eastern Uganda, innovation platforms that comprise ‘multi-stakeholder arrangements, innovation networks, coalitions or public-private partnerships’ have been adopted as institutional frameworks to foster community cohesion and collective action; yielding positive effects of increased livestock, tree cover and raised income levels.

In Mexico, a pilot study is testing the use of agroforestry as a conservation measure in protected areas, which would require reforms in political administration and land tenure for the most part.

To provide governance structures that are manageable, one presentation showed innovative territorial governance known as The Model Forest Landscape Approach as it is being carried out in 5 countries across six regions.  Benefits of this particular innovation at a landscape level have provided resilient social infrastructure, effective experimentation, demonstration and practical knowledge sharing tools. It has also promoted regional dialogue as well as public – private partnerships and growth of local business.

Ensuing discussions at the session made it clear that the feasibility of landscape approaches largely hinge on favorable policy frameworks driven by political will and active involvement of all stakeholders; including specific targeting of the private sector, a move that has potential to inject new innovation and funding.

By Elizabeth Kahurani

Communications Manager, Environmental Services & ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins

Related links:

Landscape approach allows business to share risks and benefit

Environmental services as binding pillars to synergize climate change mitigation and adaptation in rural landscapes

Social Media training at the World Congress on Agroforestry

Someone once told me, we can do all the science we want, we can do all the agricultural research for development we want, unless if our findings get “out there”, the research is a useless spending of public funding.

And “getting it out there” is not just publishing in scientific journals, but “getting it out there” through open access, giving each and everyone access not only to our research findings, but also to the insights of our research process, inviting discussions already during the research process itself.

In that philosophy, social media plays an increasingly important role, as we have proven in our CGIAR research in the past years.

And this goes also for conferences like the World Congress on Agroforestry: For us, the communications team, conferences are not a goal, they are a means. A means to advocate for our causes, a means to include of remote participants into the onsite discussions and presentations, and also a means to build capacity amongst participants, our partner organisations, and youth in the use of online media and social media, for science communications.

Core to the social media outreach at #WCA2014 was a group of 135 social reporters from all over the world. Around 110 social reporters supported us remotely, and 25 of them were onsite.

Fifteen social reporters followed a two-day social media induction course just prior to the Congress. Many of them came from the “traditional media”: the print media, radio or TV, and had little exposure to online media, leave alone, social media.

One of them is Beena Kharel who just started her new job as a Communication and Research Uptake ‘Specialist’ for The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Nepal

Coming from a traditional media and journalism background, Beena wrote the following blogpost about her first “adventures in social media wonderland”, the challenge faced in using a plethora of social media tools, and the challenges to “communicate about science without being a scientist”.

My First Social Media Ramblings

New to online science communication? “Please don’t lose your heart!” This is what seasoned social reporters told me in the corridors of the World Congress on Agroforestry (WCA) in Delhi.

The can-do camaraderie generated amongst online communicators saved the heart of CGIAR online newbies, like myself, who were ready to learn and contribute to live reporting (or social reporting) from the Congress.

It was heartening to see how a small group of dazed professional communicators, assembled as online newbies, transformed themselves into spontaneous online communicators in a couple of days.

Peter Casier, the WCA2014 social media coordinator, guided us through the process: “I know several of you struggle real hard to find a sense, a flow, and a schwung in your blog post. But your blood, sweat, and tears is worth it!”, he exclaimed the first day. And as Peter loves people who love social media, he guarded over us like a hen guards its chicks.

Transforming into an online communicator

Peer learning and interaction with communities of practice boosted the secret drive of the social reporters at the WCA2014. The group of trainees, based in Asia and Africa, wanted to assimilate into the world of social media for a professional cause. They knew adoption of a fast-emerging medium will also fetch them more dollops to butter their daily breads.

These communicators and online writers, of course, were the quintessential lot with adequate skills they have honed over the years, with a fair share of stumbles and successes. Above all, they had the love for reaching out to tell more stories in the interest of humanity.

Some of them, overdosed by traditional communications, were trying to rehabilitate into professional bloggers and hashtaggers.

Casier, an online communication expert, offered buckets of wisdom in a two-day social media boot camp set-up as a precursor to the Congress. It was in the boot camp I had met half a dozen enthusiasts from the CGIAR family dedicated to communicating science.

Social media is one thing. Social reporting is a different thing altogether.

Live tweeting and blogging from an international Congress expanded into four plenaries and six breakout sessions with a range of topics—from application of science to business impacts of agroforestry…

It was nerve-wrecking.

A social media reporter from Europe quipped: “It is like picking up a sachet of an instant Nestle kaffee in a place without taste buds for the original coffee.”

Blogs and Twitter, the main official online media, chosen for social reporting for the Congress could have been somewhat new and awkward for some professional communicators. Some needed a little push to rekindle their interest in instant communication.

A few others (like me) with no science background had to muster courage and energy only to listen to the scientists who tried to explain their findings in serious languages in less than 10 minutes in a packed auditorium. Breathless!

After the painful listening was over, the question was: What to do with the learned ramblings they had uttered during the training, which we had so dutifully jotted down or captured in gadgets? Chase a panelist on tree fodder and animal nutrition after a breakout?

Thank You, done! But a young scientist from the Indian state of Mizoram must have found my question how the villagers in rugged terrains do to get their daily supply of animal fodder too simplistic to answer. He described the landscape of North-East India instead. After the third attempt, he politely said that he would improve his presentation in the future, as I clearly did not get it. My pain: How to ask the right question on a subject you hardly know anything?

Look for audience in help? A nice tip! I tried when a female audience urged the panelists to walk extra miles to advocate their findings for actions and criticized their shy and neutral approach. Content for a blogpost?

Follow a vocal audience! Even a better tip! I grabbed a Filipina scientist-turned-activist who is married to an Indian. She wanted the scientists to become advocates and more, something like God! Content for a blogpost?

Social media for Scientists

To be or not to be an advocate is an individual choice. Not all scientists have the aptitude and incentives to opt for trendy communications. Publishing in scientific journals is one thing; publishing online in blogs or on Twitter or Facebook is another game.

More scientists, especially from the social spectrum, are appearing online to storify their findings. This is helping sell science better, inform funders about the good use of their money and create the impact of researches, say senior managers of agroforestry institutes.

Dr Sandeep Sehgal, assistant professor on agroforestry based in Jammu of India, acknowledges his student who opened his eyes to social research and the importance of online communications to get the message across. He had contributed “Scary Trees” for a blog competition in the run-up to the Congress.

An increasing number of scientists, researchers, science writers and publishers with a knack for instant, crisp and convincing narration have joined social communication channels to bridge the gap between ‘serious’ scientists and ‘fluffy’ communicators. This has given a fresh spin to innumerable campaigns—seen online even on casual clicks—to generate awareness about natural resource management, its effects on daily lives and the future for humanity.

What will happen to our dear traditional forms of communications then? I believe they will continue to bring sanity to online media!

Blogpost by Beena Kharel, Communication and Research Uptake Specialist, The International Water Management Institute (IWMI),  Nepal
Preface by Peter Casier, WCA2014 Social Media Coordinator
Photo by Daniel Kapsoot (World Agroforestry Centre)

The Western Ghats, India. Photo by Alosh Bennet

Coffee plantations are expanding fast at the cost of disrupting ecological systems. Coffee Agroforestry System (AFS) seem to have positive impact on environmental services; or do they?

Kodagu, located in the Western Ghats in India, produces 2% of the world’s coffee. The Western Ghats is one of the top ten biological hotspots in the world; over 137 species of mammals and 508 species of birds can be found here, including a sizeable population of majestic elephants.

Over the last 30 years, coffee has expanded tremendously in the region to the detriment of the forest and its dwellers. The intensification of coffee cultivation is also leading to the removal of shade trees which is directly linked not only to better growth of coffee but also to numerous ecological benefits. Water is another critical resource affected. The main rivers which provides water all over Southern India, originate from these coffee areas of the Western Ghats.

The tree composition of this coffee landscape has been affected by changes in farmers’ management practices, such as irrigation to stimulate coffee mass flowering, or introduction of exotic tree species (mainly silky oak) for timber production and pepper.

Speaking at the World Congress on Agroforestry WCA2014, Philippe Vaast, an eco-physiologist from ICRAF & CIRAD, said trees are important not only for providing shade but also for providing a microclimate for other organisms, but farmers are not adept at managing shade.

“The right amount of shade is important for coffee; too much or too little is harmful. This manipulation of shade is not done well or understood by farmers. A lot of work needs to be done in this area. ”

A project undertaken by ICRAF and partners studied for 3 years how the change in tree cover from predominantly native tree species to exotic species affected the water dynamics in coffee AFS of the Kavery watershed of Kodagu district, the most important coffee district of the region.

The research threw up a mixed bag of results: the native trees were better than exotics in terms of providing optimum shade and a better environment for coffee growth, but the exotic trees were superior in recharging aquifers.

According to Syam Viswanath, a scientist at Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education (ICFRE), two important factors have to be taken into account for coffee agroforestry system: yield and quality.

“The kind of tree a farmer finally plants on his farm is a result of many factors: growing speed, maintainability, robustness, economic value or simply its attractiveness to an elephant!”

By Nitasha Nair

Ms Nair is a Senior Communication Officer with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) – India

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For more Congress blogs, please visit http://www.wca2014.org/blog/

For even more agroforestry-related blogs, please visit http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/

Congress on Twitter: #WCA2014!

Farmers in Talensi, Ghana, regenerate their trees. Photo by Tony Rinaudo

The agroforestry system known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is spreading rapidly and widely, but can this be explained by good science?

Science guides us on optimal species to promote, plant spacing, pruning methods, soil fertility impacts, moisture levels, annual crop yields and much more.

Science also explains important concepts relevant to FMNR, such as apical dominance (i.e. why the central stem of a plant grows more strongly than other side stems) and why such rapid growth from tree stumps is possible. But the reason why FMNR is being adopted on a very large scale is not primarily because we got the science right.

I believe FMNR is being adopted by tens of thousands of farmers in dozens of countries in Africa and Asia because it is a low cost, rapid and flexible tool which is in the hands of farmers.

FMNR enables farmers to respond quickly to their ever changing economic, environmental and social reality. They adapt this flexible tool, happily sacrificing ‘optimum output’ for the much more desirable outcome of yield/income stability.

Resource-poor, risk-averse farmers have to survive and want to thrive in a highly risky social-environmental-economic reality. Failure can literally mean disaster, even death so they opt for stability of yield/income over time rather than maximum yield in some years.

In 2013, Dr. Richard Stirzaker from the CSIRO in Australia wrote the following:

“I have followed the development of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) since its very beginning in Niger during the early 1980’s. Thirty years later, independent scientists have hailed FMNR as contributing to the greatest positive transformation of the Sahel. I agree.

FMNR is a counter-intuitive idea. Traditional agroforestry has always tried to specify the ultimate tree-crop combination and arrangement that maximises complementarily. FMNR is based on a naturally regenerating suite of tree species, each growing where they are because they have demonstrated an ability to best exploit a specific niche and overcome prevailing constraints. The farmer then thins and selects from this ‘template’ that nature has produced. Farmers derive their livelihoods from cropping around the trees, cutting browse for animals, producing construction poles and firewood. The contribution each of these options make towards food security depends on current trees density, rainfall, availability of labour and the prevailing prices for the different products, providing food and income stability in a very variable environment.

I do not think that any research program, no matter how well funded, would have come up with the idea, because it expertly combines the subtleties of location specific tree selection with farmer specific opportunities and constraints.”

This is not an attack on good science, nor does it nullify the need for science to guide the targets that FMNR should move towards. It is a call to give greater emphasis on the real needs of farmers, to include them in the scientific method and even, sometimes, to follow their lead.

More information on FMNR can be found here: Farmer_Managed_Natural_Regeneration

A brief video explanation on FMNR can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DpptI4QGY

By Tony Rinaudo

R & D Advisor, Natural Resources

Food Security and Climate Change

World Vision Australia

tony.rinaudo@worldvision.com.au

Apples. Photo by Wolfgang Lonien

As Steve Jobs used to say, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

Agroforestry has what people want and need, in both the developing and developed world. Trees that improve crop yields, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide nutritious fruits, fodder for animals and fuel. The challenge lies in getting agroforestry adopted on a huge scale.

Eternal optimist Dennis Garrity, UNCCD Drylands Ambassador and former Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre addressed participants at the final day of the Congress saying “people will come to you if you have the right products.”

“Yes, we’ve had our failures,” said Garrity. “But these have helped us to produce dynamite products in agroforestry.”

In France, farmers are producing wheat with walnut trees. Agroforestry is increasingly being seen in Europe as a means for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Agroforestry systems are being developed for the American corn belt.

In Niger, over 4 million hectares of croplands are now dominated by fertilizer-fodder-fuelwood trees through what is known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).

It seems there is a menu of agroforestry products – fertilizer, fodder, food and fuel trees – that farmers can select from, but how can this knowledge be better transferred from scientists to the grassroots level. Garrity says we have failed to get the hard-core aggies on board. “How many agronomists are in the room today?” he asked, to which a few scattered hands were raised.

“We need to reach out to the aggies, they need to know about what we are doing and they need to be coaxed.” Garrity is working hard to achieve this through Evergreen Agriculture which he describes as a brand that connects agroforestry with hard-core ‘aggies’ to scale-up trees on farms.

“African farmers are showing how trees can be successfully integrated into cropping systems. When will we catch up and fully deploy their insights?”

But as I alluded to earlier, Garrity is an optimist. He believes we are beginning to see a trend which will be at the heart of a truly sustainable planet: the ‘perennialization’ of agriculture.

“If we do our jobs well, we will see that perennialization is the key to meeting the new Sustainable Development Goals.”

Agroforestry science and development can make a crucial contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals which will soon replace the Millenium Development Goals. But this contribution can only be made through a massive effort in up-scaling agroforestry across the world.

According to Garrity, we need global maps of agroforestry, a global agroforestry assessment and a global plan for up-scaling agroforestry. Additional staff will be needed to link science with development and we must not forget the holy grail: genetic information on tree species.

An “upcoming global revolution in agroforestry up-scaling” is before us, says Garrity. We have to demonstrate that agroforestry really does have the products that millions of farmers across the world want and need.

“Be ambitious,” said Garrity told Congress participants. “We need more Steve Jobs’s in agroforestry.”

Photo by Wolfgang Lonien

Men carve a pattern from a paper template. Jepara, Central Java, Indonesia. Photo by Murdani Usman/CIFOR via Flickr

People in Europe buy furniture made from Indonesian timber. They want to know that the wood is harvested legally. New EU import rules will start soon. For farmers in Indonesia, it looks like more and more paperwork with no guarantee of new markets and better income.

The European Union has agreements called Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) between itself and countries that grow tropical timber. New FLEGT rules from January 2014 will have an effect on regulations in Indonesia that govern how the 5 million or so smallholding timber growers on Java in Indonesia operate.

These smallholders produce most of the timber for the USD 1 billion worth of annual furniture exports. Their operations are already regulated to greater or lesser degrees along the entire length of the value chain, from choice of land and seedlings through harvest, sale, transport and manufacture to export. There are a number of organizations that support, or purport to support, smallholders navigate the maze of regulations and charges, adding further layers.

The set of rules through which FLEGT is implemented in Indonesia is called Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK/Timber Legality Verification System). SVLK requires third-party auditing and licensing of timber legality for all timber products and the relationships between timber producers, craftsmen and the manufacturing industry.

As well, the Ministry of Forestry regulates ‘distribution notes’, which provide species-based verification, typically for timber from food-producing trees like rambutan and mango. There are also ‘self-usage distribution notes’ for timber from State land, which are based on the territory or respective administrative area. And then there is the one that smallholders are most familiar with: the Surat Keterangan Asal Usul Kayu or SKAU; this is both species- and territory-based verification for timber not produced on State land.

“The implicit challenge is to tailor licensing and regulation differently for different modes of production within a system that is already facing financial difficulties, especially at the smallholder level,” said James Erbaugh of the University of Michigan, who presented findings from his team’s research at the World Congress on Agroforestry in New Delhi, India, on 12 February 2014.

As it is, the SKAU requires a smallholder to report to the closest village head or forestry official who has been certified for SKAU approval. This official then conducts a physical examination of the timber to be transported. Then, the smallholder must complete a Location Verification form, which requires proof of land ownership. The verification receives a serial number upon publication and six copies of it must be delivered to specific officials and offices.

The research team observed that there was a mixed level of enforcement for this verification. Timber that was destined to go across the district boundaries often included the document, while timber that stayed within the district was less often accompanied by the document. They were unable to determine the extent to which the document was completed and enforced.

“It would probably be more effective to tackle the legitimacy of SKAU certification rather than relying exclusively on trying to verify that farmers and the wider industry were complying with it,” said Erbaugh. “The need for the whole SVLK system is not because of an absence of the verification of legality but because of the lack of legitimacy. Addressing this might circumvent certain problems that SVLK is bound to face.”

How the lack of legitimacy might be addressed the researchers didn’t say. Presumably through the provision of evidence to the EU by the Indonesian Government. Perhaps most importantly, the researchers did not look at whether new SVLK licenses have actually increased market access to new EU markets for local growers or not. If the system isn’t working now, will it work in the future? Probably only with serious reform at all levels.

By Robert Finlayson

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Follow the Congress on Twitter #WCA2014 for live updates!

Agroforestry working group

A team of nine individuals from different agroforestry-related organizations worldwide will spearhead the formation of an organization that will facilitate cooperation and knowledge-sharing in this area.

The organization, the brainchild of the World Agroforestry Centre and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is expected to establish and manage an international secretariat which will coordinate activities in support of its members.

Interested founding members have been given up to three months from the close of the World Congress on Agroforestry to express their interest, through an email provided as a.temu@cgiar.com.

Other draft objectives of the organization include convening forums at different scales (global and regional) that promote agroforestry research and practice, actively engaging in international policy forums and debates that relate to agroforestry land use and providing platforms for its members to collaborate for mutual benefits.

The organization will also strive to promote publication and sharing of agroforestry research results and successful adoption and implementation.

“This organization aims to bring together national and regional agroforestry associations, research organisations, farmer groups, NGOs, corporations, universities and any individual with the common interest of transforming livelihoods and landscapes through agroforestry for a sustainable future,” said August Temu, one of the volunteers to the working group committee.

The Drafting Committee of nine distinguished individuals will develop and refine the Union’s charter. This Committee immediately sat down for its first meeting and agreed to work to an ambitious timetable. The charter they will work on will be opened for comments on 2 April. This period will conclude on 12 May, after which the Drafting Committee will formulate a final version for adoption by the founding members on 2nd June. This date is auspicious: it marks the opening day of the European Agroforestry Congress, to be held in Cottbus, Germany.

The members of the Drafting Committee are August Temu, Roger Leaky, Patrick Worms, Shibu Jose, Gregory Ormsby Mori, Mohan Kumar, Rosa Mosquera-Losada, Gillian Kabwe and Sumit Chaturvedi.

“In order to form such an international organization, you must have a charter in place, which is a legal document. We already have a draft charter ready with us,” said Temu.

It is expected that the organization will be in place later this year.

They welcome your contributions and comments, so drop them a line!

By Isaiah Esipisu & Patrick Worms

Bimbika Basnett speaking at WCA2014. Photo by Rob Finlayson/ICRAF

Development agencies and researchers have long assumed that rural women are victims. Not only of climate change but also nearly everything else. New research says these assumptions are without basis.

According to Bimbika Basnett, a researcher with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the premise that women are victims of climate change rests on tenuous assumptions and weak empirical evidence. What’s more, there is a tendency amongst people researching gender and agroforestry to tabulate data that has been separated into male and female data and draw far-reaching conclusions from it.

“In a way, it’s welcome that women are being discussed in the climate-change area,” she said. “But when you look at the assumptions that the discussions are based on, they are wrong. They can lead to negative outcomes.”

The general argument is that poor and disadvantaged people are more vulnerable to climate change. Women are lumped into the category without question. However, men might be poor and vulnerable, too, and distinctions between the genders might be hard to correlate with vulnerability to climate change.

Yet in climate-change debates, the idea of women as victims is used to introduce wider issues of inequality. And because women are supposedly victims they can be mobilized to affect change. Basnett questioned where ideas like this came from and what sort of influence they had.

Recent research showed that there were two oft-repeated claims circulating in the sector: 1) Women are 70% of the poor; and 2) they are 14 times more likely than men to die in natural disasters.

There is no basis for either of these claims, says Basnett. ‘Data in developing countries is hard to get and of poor quality so how can someone reliably calculate the global percentage of poverty by gender? Second, there is no clear definition, anywhere, of what exactly is meant by “poverty”. Being poor in one country is different from being poor in another.

“Gender and poverty are usually separate issues in most countries and not exclusively the province of the rural poor. For example, in urban areas gender issues can be magnified, such as here in India, where female sex-selective abortion is more common in cities among wealthier people than in the countryside among the poor.”

Basnett also traced the source of the claim that women were 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster. It was first aired as an anecdote in a workshop on natural hazards in 1994 and repeated without question thereafter for another decade.

Both these assumptions persisted even though they were wrong and no one had seen the original data.

“I think the uncritical acceptance of these statements, and the unquestioned “women are victims of climate change” argument, has been driven by the motivation to ensure that women and unequal power relations are included in policy discussions about climate change,” she said.

“People use this position to seek sympathy and strategic coalitions with those who privilege investing in women as a form of smart economics.”

This kind of thinking has negative effects, such as limiting the understanding of gender to stereotypes of women and men. It also weakens the credibility of gender research and encourages the implementation of policies that reproduce gender inequalities.

Basnett’s advice, not surprisingly, is that facts and figures should be investigated and not assumed. Second, there should be sound gender analyses conducted and, third, the approach used should be rights-based rather than instrumental.

Perhaps then women will be afforded the respect they deserve.

By Robert Finlayson

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Related story

Gender is a many-splendoured thing

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