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Innovating Agriculture through Gender Lenses Presented by: Silvia Sarapura, PhD Candidate Professor Advisor: James Mahone School of Environmental Design and Rural Development UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH December 2009

2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Area of Concentration and Key Definitions 2.1. The analysis of gender in development studies and practice 2.1.1. From Feminization of Development to Engendering Development 2.1.1.1. The Women in Development Perspective (WID) 2.1.1.2. Women and Development (WAD) Perspective 2.1.1.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach 2.1.1.4. Policy Approaches to Women in Development 2.1.1.4.1. Welfare Approach 2.1.1.4.2. The Equity Approach 2.1.1.4.3. The Anti-Poverty Approach 2.1.1.4.4. The Efficiency Approach 2.1.1.4.5. The Empowerment Approach 2.1.1.5. What is Feminism? 2.1.1.6. Other feminist perspectives 2.1.1.6.1. Liberal feminism 2.1.1.6.2. Classical Marxism 2.1.1.6.3. Radical feminism 2.1.1.6.4. Socialist feminism 2.1.1.6.5. The Eco-feminist perspective 2.1.1.6.6. Feminist environmentalism 2.1.1.6.7. Feminist political ecology 2.1.1.6.8. The Gender, Environment and Development perspective 2.1.2. Womens Rights 2.1.3. Gender Mainstreaming 2.2. Innovation systems and its application to international development 2.2.1. Concepts in innovation, systems and innovation system 2.2.1.1. Application of the Innovation System Concept in Agriculture 2.2.1.1.1. National Agricultural Research Systems 2.2.1.1.2. Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services 2.2.1.1.3. Agricultural knowledge, and information system, (AKIS) Perspective 2.2.1.1.4. Agricultural Value Chain and Cluster Development 2.2.1.1.5. Territorial Development

3 2.2.1.2. Innovation Systems 2.2.1.2.1. Introduction of IS in Agriculture in Developing Countries 2.2.1.2.1.1. Strengthening Capacities 2.2.1.2.1.2. Supporting Networking 3. Core Question: Does GAD Inform Innovations Systems in Agriculture? 3.1. Gender Roles and Responsibilities 3.2. Knowledge Base 3.3. Participation in decision-making processes 3.4. Gender Relations 3.5. Gender entails differences in power and knowledge production 3.6. The Root of the Problem: Gender and Unequal Access to Resources in Agricultural Systems 3.6.1. Land tenure and Food Security 3.7. Emerging Trends Affecting Gender Roles in Agricultural Innovation 4. The Challenge of Integrating Gender and Innovation in Agriculture 4.1. Institutions and governance issues 4.1.1. Institutions 4.1.2. Governance 4.2. From knowledge transfer to interactive learning 4.3. Power and innovation implications for gender relations in households, communities and meso levels 5. Final Synthesis 5.1. Examples of current initiatives for gender and innovation in agriculture 5.2. Towards improved policy and practices 6. Conclusion References

4 1. Introduction Over the last decade, agriculture1 in developing countries has become more complex hence the relations inside it (IFPRI Research Report 162; Ekboir, Dutrnit, Martnez V, Torres Vargas, & O. Vera-Cruz, 2009) as a result of globalization, urbanization, the emergence of high-value agriculture, climate change, the deterioration of natural resources, migration, and changes in the livelihood strategies of rural households (Reardon 2005; World Bank 2006a, 2007, 2008). Nowadays, the strategy is not only to bring about knowledge to produce innovations that increase agricultural productivity and reduce new or adapted poverty (Asenso-Okyere, Davis, & Aredo, 2008); but also to operationalize AIS under a set of principles in stakeholders own contexts and in ways that are suited to their own goals (Hall A. , 2007). As a result of these replenishements, two main streams of thinking have emerged to prioritize agricultural innovation. The first group defends that investment in science and technology has to be increased in agricultural productivity2. The second group can be characterized as those who put more emphasis on improving markets and, more broadly, the institutional environment3 (Meijerink, Eaton, & Mosugu, 2006). Therefore, the challenge of applying scientific, technical and other forms of applied research effectively to agricultural and rural development is not simply one of that strengthening technology transfer and information dissemination mechanisms, yet, it is necessary to reconfigure patterns of interaction between scientists and the ever changing and expanding range of actors, markets and policies in which the process of social and economic change is embedded (Hall, 2008). This reconfiguration would necessitate applying new concepts to analyze existing patterns of interaction and to plan and implement new approaches. In this innovative vision, agriculture assumes a prominent role in the development agenda. Creating more understanding of the role of agriculture in development has become a topic of interest. FAO (2006) states that: If properly managed, agriculture can have a positive impact on poverty alleviation, food security, rural and urban population distribution and the environment. Evidence suggests that these indirect contributions to welfare
For the purpose of the paper, agriculture refers to livestock, forestry, fishing, and agriculture itself. The first group is characterized by emphasizing that investment in science and technology has to be increased in agricultural productivity, which in turn will kick-start agricultural development and achieve the first Millennium Development Goals of eradicating poverty and hunger. Incrementing agricultural productivity is seen by this group as a necessary requirement to achieve food security. Initiatives and documents that fit more or less into this group are the Kofi Annan Report, the initiative by Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch Africas own Green Revolution (The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and the Sachs Report. 3 This group seems more diverse, with pro-market advocates to those who are less in favour of markets and market liberalization and advocate a supportive policy environment (linked to a more pro-active role of governments). Getting the institutions right is one of the arguments that this stream of thinking has used as a prerequisite for development. This group is more heterogenous where members may have conflicting views about institutions, but consist of all those that emphasize good governance, markets. For example, The World Bank or more broadly the Post Washington Consensus, as well as the various initiatives that aims to improve markets for small farmers such as Regoverning Markets, Agri-pro Focus, Making markets work better for the poor.
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5 and their mechanisms are not well understood, seldom analyzed in the context of development, and rarely reflected in national and rural development policy strategies. The most important is that agriculture can work in concert with other sectors to produce faster growth, reduce poverty, and sustain the environment (Pleskovic, May 2008). Agriculture also contributes to development as an economic activity, as a livelihood, and as a provider of environmental services, making the sector a unique instrument for development (Mundlak, 2000). Effervescent new markets, technological and institutional innovations; new roles for the state, the private sector, and civil society all characterize the new context for agriculture. An innovative agriculture for development redefines the roles of producers, the private sector, and the state (Buntrup, 2008). Production is mainly by smallholders, who frequently remain the most efficient producers, in particular when supported by their organizations. However, when these organizations cannot capture economies of scale in production and marketing, labor-intensive commercial farming can be a better form of production, and efficient and fair labor markets are the key instrument to reducing rural poverty (World Bank; et al, 2009). The private sector drives the organization that brings the markets to smallholders and commercial farms. The state, through enhanced capacity and new forms of governance, corrects market failures, regulates competition, and engages strategically in public-private partnerships to promote competitiveness in the agribusiness sector and support the greater inclusion of smallholders and rural workers. In that way strategies stress participation and empowerment of farmers and communities, as well as partnership and networking development among all stakeholders. Gender relations and roles at the community and family levels play a crucial role in the success of their efforts to harmonize agricultural innovation and promote social equality of all actors involved in agriculture. Approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide are living in poverty; and women are seventy percent of this group (UNDP, 1995). This feminization of poverty has become influential in the development of policy and identification of practical solutions and this has resulted in the development and implementation of several programmes focusing only on women (e.g. micro-credit initiatives, fisheries and forestry programmes). Experience shows that if women rather than men are targeted with resources, the end result is that welfare benefits will accrue directly to them and their children (Buvinic and Gupta, 1997). However, providing women with access to resources alone without giving due regard to changing or challenging gender power relations may not lead to empowerment of women.

6 Gender4, that is socially constructed relations between men and women, is an organizing element of existing agriculture practices worldwide and a determining factor of ongoing agricultural innovation and restructuring (Ferguson, 1996) that needs to be considered from an analytical, institutional, personal and political side (IDRC, 2008). These socioeconomic variables are very important and useful to analyze roles, responsibilities, constrains, opportunities, and incentives of the people involved in agriculture (Poats, 1991). Unfortunately, development research in agriculture has been ignoring complex aspects of gender relations and roles that results in incomplete and or biased research, which in turn leads to the formulation of incomplete development policies and programs (Feldman, 1995). The importance of addressing gender in agricultural innovation is also the knowledge of dealing with deeply embedded power relations and embedded roles which are often legitimized by strongly cultural traditions, beliefs and prejudices. Power relations between men and women are complex, multi-dimensional and pervasive, a diversity of tools and angles are needed to disentangle and contest them (Lewis, 2004: 7). It is also known that both these relations of power and the beliefs surrounding them can change. Among some of the critical methodological shifts in gender studies in recent years has been the emphasis on understanding the power trajectories in gender relations instead of continuing to view these as being based upon altruistic notions. Gender inequalities are appraised in contextual realities at the micro level, namely, the position of women in the household. Thus, the emphasis is on analyzing how the weaker economic bargaining power of women is rooted in an unequal institutional and cultural paradigm (Sweetman, 1999). While there is bound to be resistance, there is huge scope for change, and rural men and women themselves are the primary agents of that change. But they need support and wider alliances - to influence current power structures in their favour (Mayoux, 2007). More than thirty years have witnessed Esther Boserup pioneering work on womens role in agriculture (Boserup, 1970), and she first alerted the development community to the importance of womens role in agriculture, and triggered its current concern with gender (El-Bushra, 2000). In development, the worlds of gender equality and innovation are too often separated. Innovation initiatives are seen as both a means and an end to economic development, and gender is entrenched in donor goals and strategies. However, there is very little crossover between these two areas despite stated commitments to gender mainstreaming and, on occasion, commitments to also mainstream science and technology. There is evidence of the importance of linking these areas to ensure that innovative efforts do not enhance inequalities at the minimum and can ideally be used to further gender equality. For gender equality, it is clear that innovation plays an enormous role in development that will only increase in the coming years.
Gender refers not to women or men per se, but to the relations between them, both perceptual and material. Gender is not determined biologically, as a result of sexual characteristics of either women or men, but is constructed socially. It is a central organizing principle of societies and often governs the processes of production and reproduction, consumption and distribution. (FAO Plan of Action for Women in Development, 19962001)
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7 The paper will begin by delineating the main aspects that are considered essential for the inclusion and incorporation of gender thoughts into the Agricultural Innovation Systems in developing countries. After the introductory section, the second part will provide a description of the area of concentration and key definitions of the main topics of the paper: the analysis of gender in development studies and practice, in which the main theories of gender and development (WID, WAD and GAD) will be highlighted and these will emphasize their vision of agriculture and specially womens role within it. The other aspect that is considered important is AIS and its application to international development and how it has recently been introduced in the international arena especially in developing countries. The third section concentrates in the core question: Does GAD Inform Innovations Systems in Agriculture? This question brings many other questions and concerns that are contested according to the information gathered by considering the novelty of the field and the preliminary work of few agencies that are incorporating gender into their programmes and interventions. However, it can be noticed that the role of women is crucial and important for its functioning. Until now, the programs call for an inclusion of gender even though; these are only speaking about women. There is a need to add in gender analysis and mixed groups where men can play a role more important when evaluating womens advance. Because of the findings, a section is dedicated to appraise the challenge of integrating gender and innovation in agriculture. Before, I cover the importance of institutions and governance issues, power and innovation implications for gender relations in households and communities and the analysis of the influence of knowledge transfer to interactive learning in AIS, I will cover some issues such as gender relations, power and knowledge seen from the perspective for feminist and gender specialized academics, practitioners and activists to have a better idea of the root of inequalities and exclusion of women from the agriculture paramount. A final synthesis of the paper is provided with some examples of current initiatives for gender and innovation in agriculture in developing countries. To conclude, some policy and practices are recommended for future work in AIS with a gender perspective. 2. Area of Concentration and Key Definitions Gender issues are new neither to farm systems nor to agricultural systems, indeed, their importance in agricultural research and womens roles in agricultural production and food systems have been discussed from time to time. While some have made exceptional progress in adopting and implementing gender in their programs and interventions, in general, their adoption is worldwide uneven. Next steps should be considered to ensure system-wide attention to gender in the agricultural innovation systems by taking into account and emphasizing that

8 innovation does not take place in isolation. Rather, it is pursued in close interaction between the innovator and her/his environment (Fagerberg & Nelson, 2006). The relevant components surrounding the innovator have been identified to consist of all important economic, social, political, organizational, institutional, and other factors that influence the development, diffusion and use of innovations (Fagerberg & Nelson, 2006:182). Innovation systems are thus understood to be embedded in a wider socio-economic system in which political and cultural influences as well as economic policies help to determine the scale, direction and relative success of all innovative activities (Fagerberg & Nelson, 2006 pp.183). Organizations and institutions have been mentioned as being the main components of innovation systems (Fagerberg & Nelson, 2006 pp.188). Specifically, in the model of triple helix5 three sectors are identified as main participants in innovation systems (the public sector, the private sector and the academic sector) (Fagerberg & Nelson, 2006) where all actors converge and integrate into the innovation systems. In order to achieve equal integration and participation of all actors in agriculture innovation systems, the visualization of the programs as gender neutral or characterizing these as masculine on a symbolic level has to come to an end. This is confirmed by Blake & Hanson, 2005 exposing how innovation hence is valued in accordance with a dualistic construction of gender, discerning men and women, as well as feminine and masculine areas of innovation, as differing in innovative capacity6 (Blake; et al, 2005). The logic behind this pattern of inclusion and exclusion of actors within agricultural innovation systems are based on two mechanisms; the construction of gender and the construction of innovation systems. Whether an innovator or innovation is acknowledged as such, and is ascribed value as such, depends upon the geographical and social context (Faulkner, 2007). The construction of gender is one such contextual factor. For that reason, it is most productive to regard the construction of gender and innovation as intertwined, as not separated to achieve successful results. After more than three decades of research, it is clear that men and women play different roles, due to the results of their relationships, within particular systems of agricultural production, and occupy different socioeconomic positions as a result of these different roles and relations (Carr, 2008). 2.1. The analysis of gender in development studies and practice
The Triple Helix thesis argues that the university can play an enhanced role in innovation in increasingly knowledge-based societies (Leydesdorff & Meyer, 2006). The underlying model is analytically different from the national systems of innovation (NSI) approach (Lundvall, 1988, 1992; Nelson, 1993) that considers the firm as having the leading role in innovation, and from the Triangle model of Sbato, 1975, in which the state is privileged (Sbato and Mackenzi, 1982). 6According to Hall et al. (2007) innovative capacity refers to skills and knowledge held by individuals and organizations, institutions, patterns of interaction and policies developed, which enhances the knowledge processes ranging from its generation to utilization. As a result of the different roles in the productive and reproductive spheres, men and women are exposed to different environments, skills and experiences, and are likely to develop gender-specific domains of knowledge. Departing from this assumption, many academics identify four main forms of thinking in relation to the differences of gendered differences. (1) Men and women posses a different knowledge of similar things; (2) Men as well women have different knowledge of similar things; (3) both groups have different forms of organizing their knowledge; and (4) they have different ways of preserving and transferring knowledge. (Norem;Yoder and Martin, 1989:94). Scholars have also evidence showing that not only knowledge constructions, but knowledge networks are gendered in nature (Hassanein, 1997; Howard, 2003; Ramdas Yakshi, Anthra and Girijana, Deepika, 2001).
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9 Important information gaps in the literature are present in relation to gender and development. Gender issues are mostly to be found to be excluded from the design and planning of empirical research and data collection both at the micro, and macro levels. Also, the conceptual understanding of gender in the body of literature is poor. The meaning of gender should go beyond women and childrens studies to include a balanced analysis of womens roles, responsibilities, constraints and opportunities in different activities in relation to those of men (El-Bushara, 2000). On the other hand, the issue of women, and later gender, in development has assumed an ever- increasing prominence and popularity within the development community. However, despite (or perhaps because of) numerous theoretical and practical advances and variations, there is much confusion and debate concerning the means by which gender considerations can be integrated into development practice. These debates concern not only the theoretical approach undertaken and intended goals and objectives, but also the practical strategies and methods which can be used to implement these and incorporate gender into development projects and programmes (Kilby & Olivieri, 2008). Nevertheless the presence of these fissures, development studies and practices has remarkably advanced since the United Nation's First Development Decade in the 1960s where economic growth and the "trickle-down" approach were the solution to reduce poverty. One of the improvements in the debate has been the move to consider gender equality as a key element of development. Women's concerns were first integrated into the development agenda in the 1970s. Disappointment over the trickle-down approach paved the way for the adoption of the basic-needs strategy, which focused on increasing the participation in and benefits of the development process for the poor, as well as recognizing women's needs and contributions to society. Activists articulated women's issues in national and international forums. Following these events, the women-in-development movement endorsed the enhancement of women's consciousness and abilities, with a view to enabling women to examine their situations and to act to correct their disadvantaged positions. The movement also affirmed that giving women greater access to resources would contribute to an equitable and efficient development process. Ever since the First World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975, approaches to womens issues have changed considerably. The end of the 1970s brought in the concern with gender relations in development. Micro level studies drew our attention to the differences in entitlements, perceived capabilities, and social expectations of men and women, boys and girls. Contrary to the unified- household model, the household has been considered an arena of bargaining, cooperation, or conflict. Reflecting the norms, laws, and social values of society, the differences in the status of men and women have profound implications for how they participate in market or nonmarket work and in community life as a whole. These differences embody social and power relations that constitute the setting for the implementation of development programs, and these differences therefore influence program outcomes. In the 1980s and 1990s, research demonstrated that

10 gender relations mediate the process of development. For example, analyses of stabilization and structural-adjustment policies showed that gender inequalities have an impact on the attainment of macroeconomic objectives. The concern with gender relations in development has strengthened the affirmation that equality in the status of men and women is fundamental to every society. And this concern has prompted to refine perspectives on what development should be and how to bring it about efficiently. Development requires more than the creation of opportunities for people to earn sustainable livelihoods, it more importantly requires the creation of a favourable environment for men and women to achieve those opportunities. Development implies not only more and better schools but also equal access to education for boys and girls. Development requires good governments that give men and women equal voices in decision-making and policy implementation (El-Bushara, 2000). Having in mind the perspective that gender matters in development, it is time to examine and define the considerable change of feminist and gendered schools of thought that resulted as responses to the marginalization of women in development. One of the most fundamental achievements has been the move from a feminization of development to an engendering of development perspective an evolution that is reflected in the different approaches taken by feminists in exploring the relationship between women, men and development. It also marks the significant achievements and limits of the broad feminizing development approach, as well as the recent need to broaden out the engendering development perspective (by departing from a Woman in Development (WID) approach to a Gender and Development (GAD) approach (Razavi & Miller, 1995). 2.1.1. From Feminization of Development to Engendering Development Because of the gender-blind and male-centered conceptualization of development practice and theory in the past, feminist responses have become central to dismarginalization. The concept of womens development has now become an integral part of the development and policy initiatives. This development has been informed by a remarkable though gradual shift in the perception about women, from the stature of victims and passive objects to that of independent agents. A significant impetus to raising such an informed platform came with the adoption of development issues within the UN system, in the background of increasing activism of development practitioners (Pillai, Vijayamohanan, Asalatha, & Ponnuswamy, 2009). Emerging for almost four decades ago, feminist responses to the marginalization of women in development have gone through a remarkable move. One of the most fundamental was the progress from a feminization of development to an engendering of development perspective, progress reflected in the different approaches taken by researchers from the west and feminists from the South in exploring the relationship between women, men and development. As McIlwaine &

11 Datta (2003) state development also symbolizes the great achievements and restrictions of the extensive feminizing development approach, as well as the recent need to broad the engendering development perspective to incorporate issues such as human rights, gender-based violence and sexualities, and the need to interrogate women and men as gendered beings (McIlwaine & Datta, 2003). It also examines how new and exciting debates and critiques of globalization, development, and feminist theorizing are changing the existing frameworks and creating new ones. The field has been productive for a fundamental shift in the perspectives of and approaches to women in development. Rathgeber (1990) identifies three distinct schools of thought on gender and development, namely, Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD) and Gender and Development (GAD). As the oldest and most dominant approach, the WID arose out of the search for practical solutions to the failures of development concept and the growth of feminism based on a more systematic assessment of the roots of womens disadvantage. It was born as a trans-national movement; hence its emergence was built upon a strong sense of cohesion among women across national boundaries (Grant and Newland 1991:122). Below, a brief account of these three schools is explained 2.1.1.1. The Women in Development Perspective (WID) The term WID came into vogue in the early 1970s, as used by the Womens Committee of the Washington, DC, Chapter of the Society for International Development, a network of female development professionals, in their attempt to bring to the attention of American policymakers the works of Ester Boserups Womens role in economic development (Boserup, 1970 (First South Asian Edition 2008)) and others on Third World development (Maguire, 1984). Advocates of WID argued that traditional development processes were at best bypassing and at worse impoverishing women in developing countries. Technical-fix approaches to rural economies (agriculture, fishing, forestry and so on) were addressing problems faced by men, but ignoring the role women played in rural economies. As the significant productive contribution made by women became apparent so the argument was that development needed to target women specifically in order to better their position. It was recognized that womens subordination came from their inability to secure access to resources, markets, education and household security. Programme thus emerged which focused on womens employment and income-generating opportunities. A process of empowering women to demand change in their access to credit, health, education and resources began. Overall, WID assumed that the lack of development for women was the result of an over-sight by policy makers (Reeves and Baden, 2000:33). WID movement gained recognition from various governments and international bodies. In 1973, the US government amended the USAID law the famous Percy Amendment; the new amendment required that a proportion of the agency funds be specifically channeled to womens activities, and a WID office was created in USAID

12 departments. In 1975, as part of WIDs outreach, the United Nations took steps to establish an Institute for Training and Research for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), and it equally increased funds for women and development, presently known as UNIFEM. Virtually every section of the United Nations set up one or another form of programme for women and for development. Other institutions like the World Bank, Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation also responded with different projects of development assistance, and many other governments came out to create ministries of womens affairs. The WID approach was closely linked with the modernization paradigm which was developed in the US as an alternative to the Marxist account of development theory after the World War II, and pronounced that modernization, usually connected with industrialization, would improve the standard of living in developing countries. Economic growth was the major goal; investment was targeted to areas with high growth potential, with the assumption of "trickle down" effect in favour of the poor. However, the reality failed this expectation; the consequences of modernization and commercialization of agriculture only worsened the inequality, and marginalized various social groups, especially women, and by the end of the 1970s, this view of modernization became increasingly questioned by many researchers. As the WID approach was grounded on an acceptance of existing social structures, it, rather than examine why women had not benefited from earlier development strategies, focused only on how women could better be integrated into those development initiatives. In other words, it avoided questioning the sources and nature of women's subordination and oppression in line with the more radical structuralist perspectives such as dependency theory or Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches, and advocated instead for their equal participation in education, employment, and other spheres of society on the premise that the people involved are the problem and that the solution lies in overcoming the internalized impediments of poor women by changing attitudes and providing education. The WID approach also had a tendency to be a historical and overlooked the importance of classes and relations of exploitation among women (Marjorie Mbilinyi, 1984; Geertje Lycklama Nijeholt, 1987); and also it did not recognize this exploitation as being in itself a component of a global system of capital accumulation (Lourdes Beneria and Gits Sen 1981). According to the structuralists, on the other hand, since the system is inherently exploitative of women, further incorporation into the system cannot be the solution; women are already fully integrated into the global economy, but on unequal terms, through domestic and subsistence labour. (Lycklama Nijeholt, 1987, Plewes and Stuart, 1991) They represent WID as a blame of the victim strategy, which ignores the structural context that frames women's underdevelopment. The factors determining people's lives are both internalized culture and external material factors (Naiman, 1995), both have to be considered with.

13 2.1.1.2. Women and Development (WAD) Perspective

Out of the disappointment with the explanatory limitations of modernization theory that stood as the basis of WID arose a new movement, Women and Development (WAD), based on neo-Marxist feminism, in the second half of the 1970s. It draws some of its theoretical base from dependency theory, which, in opposition to the optimistic claims of modernization theory, maintained that the failure of Third world states to achieve adequate and sustainable levels of development resulted from their dependence on the advanced capitalist world. WAD approach begins from the position that women always have been an integral part of development processes in a global system of exploitation and inequality, and it is from this perspective that needs to be observed why women had not benefited from the development strategies of the past decades, by questioning the sources and nature of women's subordination and oppression. In this respect, both the Marxist and liberal feminists share the view that structures of production determine the inferior status of women; while the liberals solely focus on technological change as the causal mechanism, the Marxists consider its impact on class differentiation also (Jaquette, 1982). The studies of the Marxist feminists show that the changing roles of women in economic production are determined by the convergence of a number of historical factors: the sexual division of labour in reproduction, local class structure, the articulation of specific regions and sectors of production within national economies and the international economy. The result is a great diversity and complexity in the integration of women into the processes of capitalist development. (Bandarage, 1984:502) The WAD approach recognizes that Third World men also have been adversely affected by the structure of the inequalities and exploitation within the international system, and discourages a strict analytical focus on the problems of women independent of those of men, since both the sexes are disadvantaged within the oppressive global structures based on class and capital. Thus there is little analytical attention to the social relations of gender within classes. It fails to undertake a full- scale analysis of the relationship between patriarchy, differing modes of production, and women's subordination and oppression. That is, it gives scant attention to the sphere of reproduction and household level relations between men and women (Kabeer, 1994). The WAD perspective seems to implicitly assume that women's position will improve with more equitable international structures, and it sides with WID in solving the problem of underrepresentation of women in economic, political, and social structures by carefully designed intervention strategies rather than by more fundamental shifts in the social relations of gender. Such common WID-WAD focus on intervention strategies in terms of the development of income-generating activities, without caring for the time burdens that such strategies place on women, shows the singular preoccupation of these approaches with the productive sector at the expense of the reproductive side of women's work and lives.

14 The labour invested in family maintenance, including childbearing and - rearing, housework, care of the ill and elderly, and the like, has been considered to belong to the "private" domain and outside the purview of development projects aimed at enhancing income-generating activities. In essence, this has been a reflection of the tendency of both modernization and dependency theorists to utilize exclusively economic or political-economy analyses and to discount the insights of the so-called softer social sciences (Eva Rathgeber 1990: 493). 2.1.1.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach Feminists in general, when assessing the past decades of WID policy implementation, have pointed out that although WID policies have been to some extent successful in improving womens economic condition, they have been much less effective in improving womens social and economic power relative to men in development contexts. The concern over this problem led to a consensus to reform the WID, with arguments for approaches informed by a gender analysis of social relations (Kabeer 1994) and aspiration for the ultimate empowerment of women (Moser 1989, 1993); that is why the shift to Gender Analysis in Development or simply Gender and Development (GAD) in the 1980s. The focus on gender rather than women was influenced by the feminist writers such as Oakley (1972) and Rubin (1975), who were worried about the general way of perceiving the problems of women in terms of their sex, their biological difference from men, rather than in terms of their gender, the social relationship between men and women, where women have been systematically subordinated. The focus on gender rather than women makes it critical to look not only at the category women, since that is only half the story, but at women in relation to men, and the way in which relations between these categories are socially constructed (Moser 1993; 3). GAD draws its theoretical roots from the strands of socialist feminism that challenged the orthodox Marxist assertion that only class analysis could explain womens oppression, and has complemented the modernization theory by linking the relations of production to the relations of reproduction and by taking into account all aspects of women's lives (Jaquette, 1982). More than just a change of name, it involves a change of approach and a challenge to the development process as a whole. WID approach was based on a politics of access, getting women into development programmes. The GAD approach on the other hand recognizes the significance of redistributing power in social relations. Beyond improving womens access to the same development resources as are directed to men, the GAD approach stresses direct challenges to male cultural, social and economic privileges, so that women are enabled to make equal social and economic profit out of the same resources. It involves leveling the playing field, in other words, changing institutional rules (Anne Marie Goetz 1997: 3)

15 The GAD approach was grounded in the argument that an analysis focusing on women alone could not adequately capture the nature of subordination without looking at the concerned social and institutional rules and practices through which gender relations are constructed. And power is a general characteristic of gender relations (Whitehead, 1979). Therefore, an analysis of social relations of gender and development must start from domestic arena and go beyond the broader economic arena in which these relations are articulated and reconstituted (Young; et al, 1981). Gender subordination is embedded in the hierarchic structures of division of labor and gender, as one aspect of social relations, is not the only form of inequality in the lives of women and men as there are other forms of social inequalities resulting from class and race differentiation. Hence, a holistic framework that looks at the totality of social organizations and economic and political life is needed to understand any particular aspect of relations. The WID strategy of groupings is necessary, insofar as its productive purpose stands to increase women's bargaining power in the economic system, but the emphasis is on womens self-organization, which helps to increase political power within the economic system. The process of production alone would not put an end to women's subordinate position in the society. Exploration of the position of women in socialist countries emphasized the inadequacy of economic analyses of gender relations (Young; et al, 1981). Women are agents, but may not have perfect knowledge or understanding of their social situation or structural roots of discrimination and subordination (Young, 1992). Hence conscientization has been seen as an important step in the struggle through which women increase their capacity to define and analyze their subordination, to construct a vision of the kind of world they want, and to act in pursuit of that vision (Kabeer, 1995:299). This social relation approach accepts that the welfare and anti- poverty approaches are often necessary preconditions for equity. They critically consider, challenging welfare for equity, 'whether relying on fighting for reforms is sufficient or whether radical social change is imperative' (Young, 1992:51). While this line of argument has had considerable influence on academics, in reality, it has only rarely been integrated into development planning (Moser, 1989). The GAD approach has three departure main points from WID. First, it shifts the focus from women to gender and identifies the unequal power relations between women and men. Second, it re-examines all social, political and economic structures and development policies from the perspective of gender differentials. And third, it recognizes that achieving gender equality and equity demands transformative change in gender relations from household to global level. Under this conceptual adaptation, development programmes have started to focus on the politics of gender relations and restructuring of institutions, rather than of just equality in access to resources, and gender mainstreaming has emerged as the common strategy for action behind these initiatives.

16 Gender mainstreaming was first formulated as a transformative strategy to achieve gender equality at the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995. In 1997, the Economic and Social Council adopted the following definition, meant as a guide for all agencies in the United Nations system: Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for men and women of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making womens as well as mens concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality. (Economic and Social Council, agreed conclusions 1997/2; I A) At the household level the gendered division of labour traditionally defines women's role primarily in terms of provision of care, which is unpaid, taken for granted and invisible in economic terms. As the Human Development Report for 1999 points out, unpaid work in the household and community is an important provider of human development along with private incomes, public provisioning, and the bounty of the natural environment (UNDP 1999: 44). The Report emphasizes the interpersonal provision of care as a key dimension of human development, both because this is a vital ingredient for developing human capabilities, and also because it is in itself an important aspect of human functioning (one of the qualities that makes us truly human. Womens unpaid work at home has however significant impact on the quality of their lives and well-being. When women assume paid work, they also assume the double work day, paid and unpaid. The invisibility of women's unpaid work remains a critical issue in national and international macro policy. For example, the application of IMF and World Bank stabilization and structural adjustment policies (SAPs) has caused many countries to cut back on government sponsored or subsidized social services, which in turn has adversely affected the wellbeing of women, who bear the increased burden of unpaid work on their already stretched energy and resources when public sector services switch to the household. In this light, women and pro-equality development practitioners have advocated mainstreaming gender analysis into all policy and programming both in design and impact assessment. Achieving gender equality requires reorganizing gender roles and the basic institutions of society, that is, the market, state and the family. Thus, mainstreaming gender aims at transformative change in order to bring about an equal partnership between women and men. This in turn requires women to take an active part in politics and decision-making at all levels of society. And it is here that the most aspiring goal of women empowerment becomes significant in development discourse and policy. However, it should also be noted that women today are demanding, beyond GAD and gender mainstreaming, the full exercise of their human

17 rights and are on to develop a rights-based approach to economic policy, which aims directly at strengthening the realization of human rights, including social, economic and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights. The world has already adopted a number of basic human rights instruments and declarations and international covenants and conventions, which address womens rights as human rights, as well as commitments to integrating a perspective of gender mainstreaming with developmental goals, such as: Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Preamble of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; ILO Fundamental Non-Discrimination Conventions 100 and 111; International Conventions on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families; the Declaration and Platform for Action of the World Conferences on Women, the Fourth Conference in Beijing and Beijing Plus5 in New York; and the other World Conferences of the 1990s; the Earth Summit in Rio, the World Conference on Population in Cairo and plus 5; the Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen and Copenhagen Plus 5 in Geneva; the Habitat Conference in Istanbul and Plus 5 in Nairobi; the World Food Summit in Rome. A rights-based approach goes beyond viewing gender concerns as primarily instrumental to growth, as is sometimes the case, because it recognizes womens agency and their rights and obligations as citizens. This approach illustrates a profound political shift that became evident at the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing, where women no longer focused on a narrow range of so-called womens economic and social issues but were demanding for voice in all arenas of economic and social policy making. Compared with the less threatening approach of WID, Gender planning, with its fundamental goal of emancipation, is by definition a more confrontational approach. Based on the premise that the major issue is one of subordination and inequality, its purpose is that women through empowerment achieve equality with men in society. (Moser, 1993:4). 2.1.1.4. Policy Approaches to Women in Development As already explained, the WID movement has occasioned an increasing space for policy initiatives and interventions in favour of poor women in the Third world. Initially, Buvinic (1983 and 1986) categorized the policy approaches under the three heads of welfare, equity and anti-poverty in an increasing order of shift in focus. Later on Moser (1993) added two more categories of efficiency and empowerment. This list mirrors the general trends in Third World development policies, from modernization policies of accelerated growth, through basic needs strategies associated with redistribution, to the more recent compensatory measures associated with structural adjustment policies. (Moser 1993: 55).

18 2.1.1.4.1. Welfare Approach The welfare approach, one of the earliest, is called the pre-WID. Womens development policies and the most popular during the 1950s and 1960s, perceived motherhood as womens primary role in society. It was built upon the First Worlds social welfare model, initiated in Europe after the World War II, and specifically intended for the vulnerable groups (Moser 1993: 59). Its initial concerns were on what could be done to ensure that women had the conditions which enable them to meet the needs of their children and family (Young 1993: 43), since they were largely seen as mothers and caregivers rather than economic actors. This approach created a gendered educational system and classification of jobs as being the male or female profession. Three assumptions underlie the welfare approach: (1) women are passive recipients of development, rather than active participants in the development process, (2) motherhood is the most important social role for women, and (3) child-rearing is the most effective role for women in all aspects of economic development (Moser, 1993:59-60; Snyder and Tadesse, 1995:87). Thus with its family-centred orientation, this approach restricts the role of women to reproductive ones motherhood and childrearing whereas mens work is identified as productive, and it identifies the mother-child dyad as the unit of concern. The development programme is implemented through top-down handouts of free goods and services and hence it does not include women or gender- aware local organizations in participatory planning processes (Moser, 1993: 60). The programme generally consists in direct provision of food aid, additional food for children and nutrition education for mothers, and population control through family planning programmes. The welfare approach has promoted (and does promote) the availability of much-needed maternal and child health care (MCH), with the consequent reduction in infant and to some extent maternal mortality. However, it is argued that the top-down nature of so many welfare programmes has only succeeded in creating dependency rather than in assisting women to become more independent (Wallace and March, 1991:162; Moser; 1993:61). Besides, welfare programmes were not concerned or designed to meet womens strategic interests such as their right to have control over their own reproduction or even practical gender needs. However, the welfare approach is still very popular, as it is politically safe, without questioning the traditionally ascribed role of women. Molyneux (cited by Moser 1993:19) stressed the importance of recognizing that women and girls have both strategic and practical gender needs7 which are
Strategic needs refer to the status of women relative to men within society. They are context-specific and are related to gender divisions of labour, resources and power, and may include legal rights, protection from domestic violence, increased decision-making, and womens control over their bodies. Practical needs are those immediate necessities within a specific context, and generally include responses to inadequate living conditions in respect of potable water, shelter, income, health care and social security. Note that these concepts are not to be used in an either/or fashion. Benefits that only target practical needs will not be sustainable unless strategic interests are also taken into account UNEP (2001); also see Moser (1993); and Maxine Molyneux (1985), who first made the three-fold conceptualization of womens interests, strategic gender interests and practical gender interests).
7

19 associated with their generally subordinated role in society. These include gender division of labour, power and control that adversely affects them, and the lack of legal rights; domestic violence, equal wages and their control over their own bodies. She believed that the practical gender needs within those subordinated roles are generally concerned with shortfalls in living conditions, and she additionally argued that meeting strategic gender needs helps women to achieve greater equality. Strategic gender needs changes existing roles and consequently challenge womens subordination that aims to restore a sense of fulfillment and self-confidence to women. Molyneux distinguished that practical gender needs, in contrast, are those that are formulated from the concrete conditions women experience. Practical needs, consequently, are usually a response to an immediate perceived necessity, which is identified by women within a specific context: these include water provision, health care and employment. Disappointment with the welfare approach started to arise by the 1970s, out of the failure of modernization theory as well as the increasing evidence on the negative effects of Third World development projects on women. Development planners were unable to deal with the fact that women must perform two roles in society whereas men perform only one. (Tinker, 1976: 22). The concerns were heard by the UN and led to the First International Womens Year Conference in Mexico City in 1975 that formally put women on the agenda and to the subsequent developments, especially of a number of alternative approaches to women, namely, equity, anti- poverty, efficiency and empowerment. It should be noted that despite their common origin and the consequent confusion of including them all in the WID approach, there are significant differences among them. 2.1.1.4.2. The Equity Approach Equity approach is the original WID approach, introduced during the 1976-85 United Nations Womens Decade. It seeks to gain equity for women and recognizes that women who are active participants in the development process through both their productive and reproductive roles that provide a critical, but unrecognized contribution to economic growth (Moser 1993:63). Within this framework it is assumed that economic strategies have frequently had a negative impact on women, and advocates for a place for women in development processes through access to employment and to the market place; thus it accepts womens practical gender need to earn a livelihood. Buvinic (1983, 1986) described the equity approach as primarily concerned with inequality between men and women, in both public and private spheres of life and across socio-economic groups. It identifies the origins of womens subordination not only in the context of family but also in relations between men and women in the market place. Hence, it places considerable emphasis on economic independence and equality as synonymous with equity; and equity programmes are recognized as uniting notions of development and equality. The underlying logic is that women beneficiaries have lost ground to men in the development processes, and therefore,

20 in a process of redistribution, men have to share in a manner that entails women from all socioeconomic classes gaining and men from all socio-economic classes losing or gaining less, through positive discrimination policies if necessary (see also Buvinic, Lycette and McGreevey, 1983). It is also argued that the main driving force of the equity approach, a consequence of the concern for equality between the sexes, relies on legal methods and is rooted in the vision of justice, "where women, men, girls and boys are valued equally and are crucial partners for sustainable development (Snyder and Tadesse 1995). Families and communities are strengthened when men recognize and support women and girls in all aspects of their lives, especially their education, health, access to resources and decision-making opportunities. Despite of what was said, the equity approach encountered many problems, including dysfunctional schemes and ambiguous initiatives, unacceptable and practically inapplicable in many developing nations. One of the major assumptions of the equity approach was that legislated equal opportunity would ensure equal benefits for all; however, it goes without saying that despite the decrease in discriminatory laws in many parts of the world, women found that legislation or policy changes alone did not guarantee equal treatment; equal rights to education do not mean that girls and boys are schooled in equal numbers or to an equal degree. Moreover, the recognition of equity as a policy principle did not guarantee its implementation in practice a typical situation in many developing countries. It should be noted that the equity approach was designed to meet strategic gender needs through top-down legislative measures. Additionally, the major problem linked with the equity approach, was the denomination of Western-exported feminism to Third World women. The 1975 Conference went to the extent of labeling feminism as ethnocentric and divisive to WID. Thus the bottom line was the outright rejection of this approach by the developing nations, who claimed that to take feminism to a woman who has no water, no food and no home is to talk nonsense (Bunch 1980). It was felt with no surprise that the primary problem to be addressed was poverty. 2.1.1.4.3. The Anti-Poverty Approach This is the second WID approach, introduced from the late 1970s (by the end of the unsuccessful First Development Decade). It advocates the redistribution of goods, and is embedded in the concept of growth, provision of basic needs, and ensuring an increase in the productivity of poor women. The fundamental principle of this approach was the assumption that womens poverty is the result of underdevelopment and not of subordination. For instance, it recognized the productive role of women and sought to increase the income earnings of women through small-scale enterprises, on the basis that poverty alleviation and the promotion of balanced economic growth requires the increased productivity of women in low-income households. Moser (1993) mentions that this approach was made on the assumption that the origin of womens poverty and inequality with men is originated to their lack of access to private ownership of land and capital,

21 and sexual discrimination in the labour market. Therefore it aims to increase the employment and income-generating opportunities of poor women through better access to productive resources (reducing inequality between men and women to achieve income inequality). Modernization theory and its trickle down assumption fail led to this shift in approach in favour of employment opportunities as a major policy objective, an early initiative for the International Labour Organizations World Employment Programme. The working poor became the target group and the informal sector with its assumed autonomous capacity for employment generation, the solution (Moser 1978, 1984). World Bank followed in 1972, cancelling its preoccupation with economic growth and embracing a new concern with the eradication of poverty and the promotion of growth with redistribution. This marked the prominence of the basic needs strategy, with its primary purpose to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter and fuel, along with the social needs such as education and community participation through employment and political involvement (Ghai, 1978; Streeton et al. 1981). The anti-poverty approach encouraged the spread of community revolving loan funds (traditional micro-credit schemes), thus opening thequestion of womens access to formal financial institutions (Snyder and Tadesse, 1995). The anti-poverty approach, as Moser (1993) noted has three major problems. (1) Though it has the potential to modify the gender division of labour within the household, which inevitably implies changes in the balance of power between men and women within the family, in practice this potential gets reduced because the focus is specifically on low-income women and on sex-specific occupations. (2) Since the programmes for low-income women in the developing countries may reduce the already insufficient amount of aid allocated to low-income groups by the state, the governments may remain reluctant to allocate resources from national budgets to women. While income-generating projects for low income women have flourished since the 1970s, they have tended to remain small in scale, to be developed by NGOs (most frequently all-women in composition), and to be assisted by grants, rather than loans, from international and bilateral agencies. (3) Income- generating projects for women meet practical gender needs by augmenting their income, but unless and until employment leads to greater autonomy, it fails to meet strategic gender needs. This explains the essential difference between the equity and antipoverty Moreover, the anti-poverty programmes assume that women have free-time, often only succeed by extending their working day and thus increase their triple burden. Therefore, unless the anti-poverty projects have an inbuilt mechanism to lighten the burden of domestic and child care duties, it may fail even to meet practical gender need to earn an income. 2.1.1.4.4. The Efficiency Approach This is the third WID approach, adopted during the 1980s debt crisis, that is, in the context of the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) imposed by the International

22 Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in developing countries. Increased efficiency and productivity are the two main objectives of SAP. It is recognized as the most prevalent approach used today by the WID movement (Janet Momsen 199; Moser 1993). Although Kate Young (1993) attributes the emergence of this approach to the reduction of expenditure of the anti-poverty policies of the 1980s, its origin is more associated with the introduction of SAP in most developing countries. The efficiency approach rests on the neo-liberal notions of restructuring to obtain the benefits of market forces, of economic growth, and of international trade. As Pettman (1996) noted, efficiency is popular with many donor agencies, governments, and international agencies, discovering women as workers. This involves a shift of attention from women to development, seeing WID as a resource- management focus. It is argued that the shift from equity to efficiency reflects a general recognition of a specific economic fact that 50 percent of the human resources available for development were being wasted or underutilized. Efficiency in development was interpreted as consisting in fully utilizing these resources, as efficient allocation of resources optimizes growth rates with concomitant social benefits (Willis 2005). This shift towards development also had an underlying assumption that increased economic participation of Third World women is automatically linked with increased equity; on this basis, organizations such as USAID, the World Bank and OECD have argued that an increase in womens economic participation in development links efficiency and equity together (Moser 1993). Contrary to the claims of the modernization theory, the informal economy has persisted and grown over the past two decades both in developing and developed countries; and women tend to be over-represented in informal employment, leading to the phenomenon of feminization of labour force, more so, in the lower-paid, lower status and more precarious forms of informal employment. Trade liberalization has opened an easy gate for women into labour-intensive export- oriented agriculture (UNRISD 2005), where low wages have been shown to be important in gaining market share (Cho et al. 2004; Hsiung 1996; Seguino 2000a, 2000b). This in turn is used for an interpretation that womens low wages in export agriculture have effectively generated the foreign exchange for the purchase of technologies and capital goods what Seguino (2005) calls the feminization of foreign exchange. However, there has been little positive impact in terms of narrowing gender gaps, especially in wages; informal employment has drawn more women than men in all developing regions, except North Africa (ILO, 2002), with womens hourly earnings falling below those of men in identical employment categories, especially in the case of own-account workers (Heintz, 2005). The neo- liberal policies have resulted in a growing gap between rich and poor households in many countries, both developed and developing (Cornia et al. 2004; Milanovic 2003), with the unpleasant implication of growing inequalities not only between women and men but also among women, with those in the better paid jobs seeking to employ those at the bottom of the pay scales for domestic support. It is now generally agreed that markets are powerful drivers of inequality, social exclusion and discrimination against women, whose unpaid care work held the social fabric

23 together without recognition or reward (Maxine Molyneux and Shahra Razavi, 2006). Rather than liberating women into the workplace, globalization or modernization has bred a new underclass of low paid or unpaid women workers. (Wichterich, 2000). In fact what modernization has achieved is an increase in womens productive and reproductive roles, with this double day resulting in general in a heavier workload on women. Moreover, the growth of informal work across the globe, along with the casualization of formal sector employment, has helped employers not only lower labour costs, but also evades labour laws and social security obligations, resulting in increasing precariousness of jobs and greater insecurity of livelihoods for both female and male workers. The SAP in the neo-liberal framework has sought to rewrite the role of state as a facilitator of the market forces rather than as the free or subsidized provider of public goods, which are now made available only for a user fee. This in turn has meant that poorer households have to adjust by shifting more of the care into the household and on the shoulders of women as shock absorbers and care giving of last resort for households on the edge of survival (Elson, 2002); the increased user cost of health services has meant that women can less frequently afford to use such services for themselves and their children (Mackintosh and Tibandebage, 2004). The efficiency approach, relying on all the three roles (reproduction, production and community participation) of women and an elastic concept of womens time, only meets relatively practical gender needs at the cost of longer working hours and increased unpaid work (Wallace and March, 1991). Indeed, women are seen primarily in terms of their capacity to compensate for the declining social services by extending their working days (and hours), thanks to SAP. Moser characterizes this approach as top-down, without gendered participatory planning procedures, she also admits that womens increased economic participation has implications for them not only as reproducers, but also increasingly as community managers being included in the implementation phase of projects (Moser 1993:70-71) a consequence of the need for greater efficiency: women were reported to be more reliable than men in repaying loans and also of greater commitment as community managers in ensuring the flow of services (Fernando 1987; Nimpuno-Parente 1987). Although the fact that participation and participatory approaches are encouraged by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and NGOs suggests that these are the ideas which have been taken on board, the dimensions of participation that could challenge existing practices and power relations are however not engaged with (Willis 2005: 105) miles to go before empowerment is reached.

24 2.1.1.4.5. The Empowerment Approach

This approach is supposed to empower women through greater self-reliance through supporting bottom-up (grassroots mobilization) such as the microcredit scheme, indicates a growth of feminist work in developing countries. As the cornerstone of GAD, the empowerment approach developed out of the dissatisfaction with the original WID as equity approach, and is concerned with counteracting its marginalization, by integrating gender as a crosscutting issue in development organization and in interventions (often referred to as gender mainstreaming). It emerged unlike other approaches less from the research of the First World feminists but more from that of the emergent feminists and NGOs in developing countries. The Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) has in general been recognized as the best-known supporter of this approach (Snyder and Tadessa, 1995; Moser, 1993). According to DAWN, it is the experiences lived by poor women throughout the Third world in their struggles to ensure the basic survival of their families and themselves that provide the clearest lens for an understanding of development processes. And it is their aspirations and struggles for a future free of the multiple oppressions of gender, class, race, and nation that can be the basis for the new visions and strategies that the new world needs. (Gita Sen and Caren Grown, 1987:9-10). In this context, DAWN identifies empowerment with personal autonomy, which means for the poor and for the nations of the developing world that they are able to make their own choices in the realms of social, economic and political life. This in turn calls for participation and seeks to create self-reliance, ensuring that targeted measures reach women through autonomous womens organizations. The fundamental assumption here is the interrelationship between power and development, the importance for women to increase the power. But this power does not mean domination over others with a win (women) lose (men) situation. The dominant understanding within social sciences has been of power as power over, whereas the feminist understanding of empowerment should be a dynamic one, which conceptualizes power as a process rather than a particular set of results. Afshar (1997:13). In this context empowerment becomes a process that cannot be given to or for women, but has to emerge from them. This is identified as the right to determine choices in life and to influence the direction of change, through the ability to gain control over crucial material and non-material resources. It places far less emphasis than the equity approach on increasing womens status relative to men. It thus seeks to empower women through the redistribution of power within, as well as between, societies. (Moser, 1993). This conception of empowerment as a dynamic, enabling process in turn has implications for political action and for development agencies. Empowerment requires a transformation of the social structure marked by womens subordination. Fundamental legal changes are presupposed for justice for women in society changes in law, civil codes, systems of property rights, labour codes, control over womens bodies and the social and legal institutions that endorse male control and privilege. Equity approach also identifies these strategic needs, but the modus operandi differs: while the former (for that matter, all the previous

25 approaches) relies on top-down legislations and interventions, the empowerment approach functions in a bottom-up, participatory planning framework of womens organizations at grass-root level. Important entry points of intervention are popular education, organization and mobilization. The welfare approach also stresses the importance of womens organizations and utilizes them, but as a top down means of delivering services. Moreover, the welfare approach acknowledges only the reproductive-homemaker roles of women. On the other hand, the empowerment approach recognizes all the three roles of women (i.e. community participation, reproduction and production) and seeks to raise womens consciousness through bottom-up organizations and mobilize them against subordination (Moser 1993). It also differs from the equity approach in respect of the means of reaching the goal of strategic gender needs. The failure or limited success of the legislative initiatives under the equity policy has stood to temper the moves of the empowerment approach: it seeks to reach the strategic gender needs through the practical needs used to build up a secure support base, as exemplified by a number of Third World womens organizations, such as SEWA in India, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and GABRIELA in the Philippines. However, there are some postmodernist critiques of the DAWN alternative to conventional development. Mitu Hirshman (1995) notes that by establishing womens labour, which is an androcentric idea of capitalism and modernism, as the clearest lens through which to understand and analyse their experiences, it creates an unnecessary hierarchy among different aspects of womens lived realities. By positing poor womens labour as the defining category and the founding source of womens experiences in the South, and also as the grounds for their alternative approach to development, the authors commit themselves to a form of essentialism which seeks to establish a priori an indisputable natural and innate essence to Third World womens lives and experiences. This is derived not necessarily from biological facts, but from secondary sociological and anthropological universals, which define the sexual division of labout Mitu Hirshman (1995). Moreover, some critics argue that DAWN's agenda has in-built beliefs in modernization as its goal (Parpert, 1995; Crush, 1995). It also suffers from the same economistic bias as mainstream development theory, which is entrenched in the belief that material needs constitute the sole determinant of human existence. The empowerment approach had first insignificant influence on mainstream development agencies, even after the general recognition of the GAD approach, even though a few countries like Canada and Norway started to support the empowerment initiatives of NGOs by providing funds. It changed for a better turn with the publication of the United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) 1995 Human Development Report (HDR) that revived the interest in the issue of gender equality with its effort to supplement the human development index (HDI) with the gender related development index (GDI) and a gender empowerment measure (GEM). Afterward, other international development agencies followed, and now

26 almost every agency has an empowerment division attached to its anti-poverty policy forum. The practical empowerment methodology, as used by most of the Third World womens organizations in terms of seeking to reach the strategic gender needs through the practical needs used to build up a secure support base, lends them a convenient tool for covering up both their anti-poverty and efficiency approaches that now appear as economic empowerment approach. In addition to attaching the focus of gender issue to this policy of meeting practical needs, it also looks for a substitution of the agency of civil society for that of the state in development process (the original agenda of neo-liberalism). It is important to notice that The Gender Equality Strategy (20082011) of the UNDP is designed to ensure gender equality and womens empowerment as an integrated dimension in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2008-2011. It stands to assist countries to formulate, implement and monitor Millennium Development Goals (MDG)-based national development strategies centered on inclusive growth and gender equality. 2.1.1.5. What is Feminism? Feminist theoretical frameworks and development frameworks have influenced thinking and policy. A historical context is important to understanding development and feminist thinking and how have they progressed, impacting each other in the process. Feminism8 derives its origin from multiple theoretical formulations and is based on historically, and culturally concrete realities and levels of consciousness, perception and action. From the 17th century till date the definition has evolved to represent different articulation, conceptualization and the changing times. Feminist theories seek to uncover (1) The incidence of gendered thinking that uncritically assumes a necessary bond between being a woman and occupying certain social roles; (2) The ways women negotiate the world and; (3) The wisdom inherent in such negotiation. The social roles and the ways women negotiate the world also differ among women in diverse contexts (cultural, social, political, racial or ethnic, religious, etc.) and with diverse personal characteristics (age, education, caste etc.). Most development approaches make the mistake of clubbing seeming similarities into Groups ignoring vast difference amongst women, influenced by many factors like class, caste, socialization process and its manifestation in their lives. 2.1.1.6. Other feminist perspectives 2.1.1.6.1. Liberal feminism. - LF is rooted in the tradition of 16th- and 17th-century liberal philosophy, which focused on the
A broad definition of feminism is An awareness of womens oppression and exploitation in society, at work and within the family, and conscious action by men and women to change this situation(Pati, 2006)
8

27 ideals of equality and liberty. The liberal conception of equality was based on the belief that all men had the potential to be rational and that any inequality had to be justified in rational terms. The liberal conception of liberty meant that people were governed only with their consent and only within certain limits, generally defined in terms of the public and private spheres (the former the government can regulate; the latter it cannot). 2.1.1.6.2. Classical Marxism.- argues that throughout history people have found many different means of feeding, sheltering, clothing, and reproducing themselves, that is, of producing their material life. In producing their material life, people work together and enter into social relations with one another. The means and social relations of production constitute the modes of production. The subordination of women came into existence with the mode of production that introduced private property. 2.1.1.6.3. Radical feminism.- emerged in the 1960s in the US in response to the sexism experienced by women working within the civil-rights and antiwar movements. Traditional Marxism stated that class was the prime factor in the oppression of working people and that gender equality would follow upon the abolition of class society. Radical feminists argued that making gender equality secondary to class equality diminished the importance of, and deferred action on, womens concerns. Radical feminists insist that womens subordination does not depend on other forms of domination, such as class. They argue that patriarchy, or the domination of women by men, is primary and existed in virtually every known society, even those without classes. Womens subordination, as it is deeply embedded in individual psyches and social practices, is more difficult to change than class. 2.1.1.6.4. Socialist feminism.- emerged in the second half of the 1970s. Socialist feminists argued that class and womens subordination were of equal importance and had to be challenged simultaneously. Socialist feminists redefined the radical-feminist conception of patriarchy so that it meant a set of hierarchical relations with a material base in mens control over womens sexuality, procreation, and labour power. They added an historical dimension to the concept of patriarchy, arguing that it takes different forms in different historical periods and in different racial, cultural, political, economic, and religious contexts.

28 2.1.1.6.5. The Eco-feminist perspective.- It is also referred to as the Women, Environment and Development perspective. This perspective holds that there is a natural link between women and environment as both are involved in creation of life. The mainstream post-colonial development characterized by capitalism and patriarchy exploited both nature and womens labour. As a result of this linkage and dual exploitation, women have a greater interest in ending domination over nature and their own lives. The origins of this theoretical tradition are largely associated with Shiva and Mies (1993) who see the patriarchal dominance of women by men as the prototype of all domination and exploitation in various hierarchical, militaristic, capitalist, and industrialist forms. They point out that the exploitation of nature, in particular, has gone hand in hand with that of women, and the ancient association of women with and nature links womens history and the history of the environment, and is the source of natural kinship between feminism and ecology (Vandana, Shiva and Mies, Maria, 1993). Accordingly, ecofeminists see female experiential knowledge as a major source for an ecological vision of reality. Arguments tracing a universally caring attitude of women toward nature fail to convince in the face of varying behaviour across classes, regions and contexts. Urban women who use little firewood or fodder, and women from rich peasant households who can obtain much of what they need from family land, have a very different dependence on and hence relationship with communal forests than do poor rural women. 2.1.1.6.6. Feminist environmentalism.- argues that womens and mens relationship with environment needs to be understood in the context of specific forms of their interaction with it, i.e., the material reality. Factors such as gender and class division of labour, caste divisions, distribution of power and property influence the impact of environmental change on people and consequently their responses to it. Since knowledge about nature is experiential, these factors also shape knowledge based on this experience. For instance, women acquire special knowledge about resource regeneration, food grain cultivation in agriculture and plant species for meeting subsistence needs. Feminist environmentalism calls for a transformational approach. It requires a complex set of interrelated changes in the composition of what is produced, the technologies that produce it, the processes by which decisions on products and

29 technologies are arrived at, the knowledge systems on which choices are based and the class and gender distribution of products and tasks. 2.1.1.6.7. Feminist political ecology perspective.- treats gender as a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with class, caste, race, culture, and ethnicity to shape processes of ecological change, the struggle of men and women to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods, and the prospects of any community for "sustainable development" (Rocheleau; et al, 1996:4). This approach provides a framework to understand how access to and enjoyment of the material basis of our lives comes about through conjunctures of local, regional and global ecological provisioning and local, regional and global political appropriation and redistribution of resources. It works with the notion of survival which connects the global north and south and which is understood in the context of capitalist globalization. Feminist political ecology draws attention to the ways in which local ecological and livelihoods systems are linked to national and global government, economic and political systems that act in various subtle and not so subtle ways to constrain alternative development possibilities at the local level. Gendered knowledges and spaces and womens collective struggles are also key themes in feminist political ecology (Rouchleau; et al, 1996). Feminist political ecology builds on an ecofeminist argument and emphasizes gender knowledges, rights and politics in the context of environmental arguments (Nightingale, 2006). Significantly, feminist political ecology animates its arguments at a variety of scales and not just at the household and community level. 2.1.1.6.8. The Gender, Environment and Development perspective.- draws from feminist environmentalism and looks at the inter-linkages between organizational relationships, social structures and planning processes and methods. In doing so, it outlines a strategy for more sustainable, participatory, just and gender-sensitive natural resource management. It recognizes that men and women interact with natural resources differently and that gender is a key factor in divisions of labour, rights and responsibilities affecting the management of natural resources. Consequently, it calls for a need to challenge and transform not only notions about the relationship between people and nature but also the

30 actual methods of appropriation between people and nature by a few.

As it can be recognized, there are diverse feminist theoretical approaches. Although they converge on the core issue of womens subordination, they differ in their assumptions about the causes or sources of that subordination. These differences reflect the richness of womens lives and the need to integrate the experiences and knowledge of women across the globe, and a move towards a more inclusive, sensitive theorizing about both womens subordination and their power. 2.2. Womens Rights Now, more and more organizations are moving to thinking about womens issues and gender equality in terms of womens human rights. For example, the Association for Womens Rights in Development (formerly the Association for Women in Development) changed its name in 2001 to reflect this switch: WID had become outdated and carried negative baggage and by this time, more than half of [their] members identified themselves as working in human rights. Most importantly, the new name was to signal a shift in thinking and practice in the field Womens rights provides the powerful language and monitoring system to assert that womens rights are an inherent part of all womens lives and gender and development is an enabling tool for overcoming the social realities that violate those rights (Kerr, 2002). Recently, other organizations interested in improving the lives of women and girls, as well as in the general development community, have begun to switch to this rights-based approach to development. A rights-based approach to development builds on both the experiences of the development and human rights fields that places human rights as the means, the ends, the mechanism, and the central focus of human development (Symington 2002:1) Rights in this context refers to human rights, as opposed to legal rights, as defined in international human rights conventions, like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as well as declarations and the rights articulated by United Nations treaty monitoring bodies (Symington 2002:2). Human rights are development goals as well, like a decent standard of living, health care, gender equality, and basic education. Approaching these goals as human rights means ensuring that a person can gain access to the freedom or resource that will enable them to realize their rights, such as health care or education. The rights-based approach also establishes an obligation to implement policies and programs that create the conditions in which human rights can be realized. As such, an action from a rights-based approach might be making political demands on a government or corporation. The rights-based approach can be used in conjunction with other approaches, such as gender and development. Because equality and non-discrimination are central parts of human rights, gender equality is central to ensuring human rights, rather than just an add-on

31 (Symington 2002:3). It appears that some donors, as well as NGOs, are moving to a rights-based approach to development, especially when talking about gender equality. This move will be important to consider in regard to STI initiatives because the language of rights has not been used very frequently in relation to science, technology, and innovation. In interviews and discussions for this paper, there were large disparities among opinions regarding the potential for a rights-based approach to STI. Many are concerned that this switch will alienate certain groups interested in STI for example, that science and technology communities will better understand and appreciate the language of gender equality rather than the more demanding language of rights. More thought and consideration will be necessary on this topic. 2.2.1. Gender Mainstreaming Despite some groups switching to think more in terms of rights, the standard approach by development organizations and donors to address gender equality is a strategy often called gender mainstreaming9, part of the gender and development approach. Gender mainstreaming usually refers to how organizations seek to integrate gender issues into all of their work, including their ways of working from their organizational structures and hiring practices all the way to the projects they choose and the results they seek. Gender mainstreaming grew out of the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA) in 1995 as a strategy to address inequalities and unequal access to resources in areas of concern in the PfA (Symington 2004:5). Ten years later, many organizations and institutions have adopted gender mainstreaming as a key strategy for ensuring gender equality in their work. However, the gains for womens rights work have not been apparent. As a result, a number of organizations (both donors and development NGOs) are re-evaluating the strategy. Gender mainstreaming is easier to grasp and apply as it relates to sectors like health, education, and microcredit, but in areas such as infrastructure and macroeconomics the application is less clear-cut (Rath 2005:26). These are the hard areas of development that are often seen as gender neutral. This is clear as well even within STI issues. Typically, gender is addressed in health, education, and ensuring access to information all areas that are traditional womens issues in development rather than as a truly crosscutting issues. Has it worked? How has it been implemented? Although some still see gender mainstreaming as the only strategy that will lead to the integration of gender equality and womens rights objectives into the so called hard issues of macroeconomics and poverty eradication (Symington 2004:2). For others, the promise of gender mainstreaming is long gone and has, instead of empowerment for women in development, resulted
Gender mainstreaming is a strategy which aims to bring about gender equality and advance womens rights by infusing gender analysis, gender-sensitive research, womens perspectives and gender equality goals into mainstream policies, projects, and institutions. Instead of having segregated activities for women, or in addition to targeted interventions to promote womens empowerment, it brings the focus on womens issues and gender equality into all policy development, research, planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects (Symington 2004, p. 1).
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32 in the disappearance of womens needs and gender analysis in policies and programs (Symington, 2004:1). This debate is currently taking place among gender equality advocates: Is gender mainstreaming a tool we can use? It is a process that is supposed to empower women? According to Mariama Williams10, there is also a persistent and growing gap between macro level planning/macro phenomena and gender mainstreaming at the policy analysis and applications levels in governmental, international and inter- governmental organizations (Symington 2004:2). This is clearly the case with science and technology, which is often considered a hard area. Hard areas are those that have nothing to do with gender (e.g., economic policy). Soft areas are those that are offsetting the adjustment costs from the planning and decisions that do not address gender. Science and technology in this sense is a hard area where people often assume gender has no place. However, womens and mens access to medicine, traditional knowledge, and technology transfers are impacted differently (Symington 2004:3). Although some organizations have had some success with their gender mainstreaming efforts, for most others gender mainstreaming, as practiced, is more often used as a strategy for obscuring and under-valuing the significance of gender inequality (Symington 2004:3). IDRC has noted that within its own successful implementation of gender mainstreaming, there have been varying levels of success (Houlihan, 2005). In fact, in 2002, Norway organized a donor meeting, providing proof that while gender often implied high rhetorics, it was seldom followed by adequate funding and high-level commitment or an understanding of the transformatory implications of the process (Symington 2004:5; see also Dubel (2002). The understanding of the concepts of gender analysis, gender mainstreaming, and womens rights are important for the following discussions. Research has revealed that the single most common approach to gender and STI is to use a gender mainstreaming approach, yet for most donors; there is little evidence that this has resulted in critical use of gender analysis or womens rights as tools for developing STI policies and programs. Most current work on gender and development reflects three stylised schools of thought concerning the impact of development and growth on gender inequalities (Forsythe; et al, 2000): The modernization-neoclassical approach holds that gender inequalities likely will decline as a country develops. Economic growth entails an increase in employment opportunities and competition, which gradually eliminates gender inequalities in education, finance, training and so forth.
Mariama Williams consults on international economics and research advisor with the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), and Development Alternatives with Women of a New Era (DAWN).
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33 The Boserup (1970) approach views the relationship between gender inequalities and economic growth in terms of a U-shaped pattern. Where no market economy exists, such inequalities remain negligible. With growth and development, discrimination against women initially increases as a consequence of the specialization of roles, with women having the principal responsibility for childcare and men for earning income. Later, however, and with the overall transformation of society, this trend can reverse owing to increasing opportunities and demand for women in the workforce. Feminist studies (Tinker and Bramsen, 1976; Semyonov, 1986) emphasize the major role played by institutions such as patriarchal family structures in perpetuating gender inequality. Economic growth is regarded as a factor that increases the vulnerability of women. (Morrisson, 2004). 2.3. Innovation systems and its application to international development As mentioned earlier, the limited access of conventional research and development approaches in transforming and sustaining agriculture in developing countries has conducted to a series of conceptual, methodological, technical and practical innovations during the last forty years. Production systems opened the way to farming systems research, which gave opportunity to the emergence of participatory and farmers-first approaches (Scoones, 2008), then the livelihoods and knowledge systems approaches at household, communities and meso levels came forward. Each one of these approaches in the uneven evolution expanded the unit of analysis and intervention (Scoones, 2008). These dynamized the framework by acknowledging the non-linear and iterative nature of change processes, and introduced a larger scale and set of economic, social-cultural, institutional and political factors to understanding and directing the drivers of technological change (Mation, 2009). Consequently, the innovation systems approach is recently presented as the most complete expression of this chain of evolutions, in which systematically incorporates linkages between stakeholders and organizations within the broader institutional and policy environment; and also incorporates internal organizational changes that are necessary for effective linkage ( (Hall A. , 2007) 2.3.1. Concepts in innovation, systems and innovation system New ideas (knowledge), practices, or products that are successfully introduced into economic or social processes are considered as innovation11 (OECD, 1999; Asenso- Okyere & Davis, 2008). The process of innovation further involves the application of
Innovations are classified as a product (plural) when they result in something new that is marketed; or process (singluar) when they modify the way of doing something without modifying the final product (OECD 1999; Conroy, 2008). Overall, an innovation process includes a succession of product and process innovations (Davila, Epstein, and Shelton 2006) and it can be explained as an evolutionary and social process of collective learning (Ronde & Hussler, 2005).
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34 technical, organizational, institutional, social or other forms of knowledge to attain positive new changes in a particular situation (Conroy, 2008). In agriculture, innovation can include new knowledge or technologies related to primary production, processing, and commercialization, which can positively affect the productivity, competitiveness, and livelihoods of farmers and others in rural areas (Spielman D. J., 2005). Following the system thinking of the 1980s, after the work of Checkland and his associates, a system is a mutually agreed definition or delineation of entities performing specific functions. What makes it a system is some degree of organizedness that defines its structure (Checkland, 1993, Senge et al., 1994). This structure owes its essential characteristics and thereby its functions to the patterns of organization (Capra, 1997; 2002). These patterns of organization are created through a configuration of relationships among components of a system. In a nutshell, the overall design includes aspects such as the roles and expectations of different actors, incentives structure to change habits and practices, patterns of interaction in communication within the nodes, and decision-making processes (Beshab, 2009). On the other hand, an innovation system (IS) is defined as a set of interrelated agents12, network of organizations, enterprises, generating, diffusing and using knowledge and technology to bring new products, new processes, and new forms of organization into economic use, together with the institutions and policies that affect their behaviour and performance (Spielman, 2005; The World Bank, 2007). And an IS can be national, regional, sectoral or technological (Carlsson, Jacobsson, Holmen, & Rickne, 2002). The innovation systems concept extends beyond the creation of knowledge to encompass the factors affecting demand for and use of knowledge in novel and useful ways and is a designed social system facilitated by human agency. The innovation systems notion embraces not only the science supplier but the totality and interaction of actors involved in innovation (World Bank W. , 2006), for that reason, innovation systems not only help to create knowledge; they also provide access to knowledge, share knowledge, and foster learning in useful ways (Rajalahti, Janssen, & Pehu, 2008). The innovation system approach emerged in the mid 1980s as a Schumepeterian perspective that drew significantly from the literature on evolutionary economics and system theory (Speilman, 2005; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Dosi, et al., 1988; Freeman, 1987; Metcalfe, 1988; Lundvall, 1992; Edquist 1997). Theories of technological change in agriculture that developed in the latter half of the 20th century have tended toward the Hicksian notion of innovation induced by relative factor scarcities rather than the Schumpeterian system, in which market structures and socioeconomic institutions affected (and responded to) technological innovation. By introducing relative factor scarcities and prices as the key determinants of innovation, Hicks ([1939] 1946) married the notion of innovation to the larger neoclassical framework. His work informed the modern theories of
Carlsson et al. (2002) differences agents under four different types of capacities: selective, organizational, functional, and learning
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35 agricultural development and economic development suggested by Hayami and Ruttan (1971). These work originated dense literature on the role of public research systems in generating technological change in agriculture (Echeverra, 1990; Huffman and Evenson, 1993; Anderson, Pardey, and Roseboom, 1994; Alston, Norton, and Pardey, 1995; and Alston, Pardey, and Smith, 1999, among others), bolstered by studies on the successes of the Green Revolution (Lipton, 1989; Hazell and Ramasamy, 1991; and Hazell and Haddad, 2001, among others). The philosophy of innovation system brought a significant change from the conventional linear approach to research and development by providing an analytical framework that explores complex relationships among heterogeneous agents, social and economic institutions, and endogenously determined technological and institutional opportunities (Agwu, Dimely, & Madukwe, 2008). It demonstrates the importance of studying innovation as a process where knowledge is accumulated and applied by heterogeneous agents, through complex interactions that are conditioned by social and economic institutions. This is not a simple aggregation of organizations, it is a group of agents whose characteristics to operate are coherence, harmony and synergy. It is an interactive learning process in which enterprises/agents in interactions with each other, supported by organizations and institutions play key roles in bringing new products, new processes and new forms of organizations into social and economic use (Francis, 2006).
Essential elements of innovation system 1. The organizations and individuals involved in generating, diffusing, adapting and using knowledge. 2. The interactive learning that occurs when organizations engage in generating, diffusing, adapting and using new knowledge and the way in which this leads to innovation (new products, processes or services). 3. The institutions (rules, norms, conventions, regulations, traditions) that govern how these interactions and processes occur.

The concept of innovation system is built on several assumptions and integrates current trends in development that includes: a. Innovation takes place everywhere in the society and therefore bringing the diffuse element of a knowledge system and connecting them around common goals should promote economic development. b. Innovation is an interactive process and is embedded in the prevailing economic structure and this determines what is to be learnt and where innovation is going to take place. c. Innovation includes development, adaptation, imitation and the subsequent adoption of technology or application of new knowledge. d. Innovation takes place where there is continuous learning and opportunity to learn is a function of the intensity of interactions among agents. e. Heterogeneous agents are involved in innovation process, and formal research is a part of the whole innovation processes.

36 f. Linkages and/or interaction among components of the system (knowledge generating, transfer and using agents) g. Institutional context rather than technological change drives socio-economic development. h. In addition to technical change and novelty, innovation includes institutional, organizational and managerial knowledge. 2.3.1.1. Application of the Innovation System Concept in Agriculture In the last decade, economic and technology strategies have shifted from national agricultural research systems (NARSs) to agricultural knowledge, and information system, (AKIS) and more recently to agricultural innovation system (AIS). The main characteristic of those is that they began with a linear approach and during the transition these have become less linear and more dynamic (review and finish this statement) 2.3.1.1.1. National Agricultural Research Systems The NARSs emerged in the 1970s and was informed by neoclassical economics and the inherent failures in the market for agricultural research in developing countries. It had a tendency towards linearity in movement of knowledge from known source (formal research) flowing to extensionists and finishing in end users (the farmers). It distinguishes the public good nature of agricultural research, the role of the state in fostering technology change, and assumed that the social and economic context of technological change is exogenous and unchanging. National agricultural research institutes (NARIs; INIAs in Spanish) have dominated NARSs and have been the receivers of main share of government and donor funding (Trigo and Kaimowitz, 1994). However, the introduction of competitive grant schemes and ideas of institutional coordination has opened up the NARSs to participation by other providers of research and development such as universities and other public and private research organizations. The performance of NARSs has usually been measured in scientific output and through internal rates of return on investment in public research. Some NARSs have experienced difficulties with bureaucratic planning processes and strong dependence on government administration; others moved ahead to more flexible forms of fostering agricultural innovation. NARSs have been challenged by failures in production increase, lack of efficiency in generating relevant research results applicable in local contexts, incapacity to deal with issues of local pro-poor development and environmental conservation, lack of participation of farmers and other stakeholders and tendencies to shrink employment of government researchers (Hall, Mytelka, & Oyeyinka, 2005). 2.3.1.1.2. Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services By the 1990s, the agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS) evolved as a more sophisticated and less linear approach. Contrary to the focus of the NARS, it emphasizes linkages between research, education and extension in generating and

37 fostering technological change. Public agricultural extension programs and/or technical advisory services agencies have been the mechanisms to disseminate knowledge and technologies that were created in the NARS which were organized locally and regionally through extension offices. Extensionists have been in charge of distributing knowledge. Supplementary to this, field days, field schools, and farmer-to-farmer communication have been provided. The challenge is here that new ideas have arisen to challenge the idea of simply transferring knowledge and the need to incorporate more systemic approaches and facilitating roles. The emphasis is to assist farmers to organize themselves and act collectively in order to look after partnerships with service providers and rural institutions to participate in common and joint learning (Birner; et al, 2006). AKIS is limited in its ability to conduct analysis beyond the nexus of the public sector and to consider the heterogeneity among agents, the institutional context that conditions their behaviours and the learning processes that determine their capacity to change (Speilman, 2005). In general, the system projects agricultural research system as the epicentre of innovation as opposed to the multiple knowledge base put forward in innovation system perspective. 2.3.1.1.3. Agricultural knowledge, and information system, (AKIS) Perspective This perspective is an additional development of the agricultural technology system concept (Elliott, 1992) through the works of Nagel (1979) and Rling (1986). Rling and Engel (1991) define an AKIS as a set of agricultural organizations and or persons, and the links and interactions between them, engaged in such processes as the generation, transformation, transmission, storage, retrieval, integration, diffusion, and use of knowledge and information, with the purpose of working synergistically to support decision making, problem solving, and innovation in a given countrys agriculture. AKIS actors include farmers; farmers organizations; cooperatives; specialized services; universities; groups and study clubs; agro-based industries; public- and private sector research, extension, and training institutions; agricultural press and information services; agricultural policy units; and formal and informal networks of many kinds. The AKIS is concerned with the various actors involved along the knowledge generation chain while taking into account the variety of feedback and dynamics between those actors. According to Engel (1990) the performance of an AKIS has to be measured in terms of the contribution to sustained agricultural adaptation and has to be envisaged as the combined outcome of the policies and actions of many, not necessarily cooperating actors. The AKIS concept has been lately adopted in the World Banks approach to extension and is commonly used by practitioners from different development agencies who combine it with participatory research approaches (Chambers, 1992). Some common critiques of the AKIS concept include its insufficient focus on concrete technological solutions and its incapacity to deal with agents on a broader sectoral, program, or commodity scale. Although application of the AKIS concept in concrete policymaking has been rather anecdotal, it remains a great achievement to have introduced an

38 explicit farmers perspective and to have shifted emphasis to the understanding of interaction and knowledge flows on a farm and community level. 2.3.1.1.4. Agricultural Value Chain and Cluster Development Value chains are sectoral arrangements that allow buyers and sellers of a commodity who are separated by time and space to progressively add and accumulate value as products pass from one member of the chain to the next. In agriculture, product or value chains (agrichains) include all actors that trade, produce, or otherwise deal with a certain agricultural commodity, ranging from the agricultural input industry via producers, transporters, processors, and marketers to the final consumer. For developing countries, work on value chains has focused on global governance (Gereffi, Humprey, and Sturgeon, 2005), distribution of gains among chain actors (Gereffi, 1999), the power of buyers (Humphrey and Schmitz 2000), and the opportunities of agents from developing countries to get involved in value chains and share parts of the value added they generate (Kaplinsky, 2000; Prez; et al, 2001; Daviron and Gibbon, 2002). Gereffi; Humphrey; and Sturgeon (2005) see innovation as a major opportunity to upgrade technologically underdeveloped producer groups in developing countries. The value chain approach is more known at national level by many theorists and government development programs (Kaplinski and Morris, 2001), in particular, in Latin American agriculture (Herrera, 2000). Countries like Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, and many more have embraced the idea of developing specific agri chains and increasing their competitiveness, and donors have supported this approach (e.g., Humphrey 2005). In many cases these policies relate to a cluster development approach (Altenburg and Meyer-Stamer, 1999; Porter, 1998), that is, the development of industries in a certain geographical context to profit from economies of scale, buyer and seller networks, and dynamics of joint learning. Many theorists have propagated cluster development strategies based on technologies accessible to all members of the cluster. Other scholars have seen the limits of this approach to pro-poor developmentproducers often lack the capacity to be included in the clusterand favor more holistic territorial development approaches (Alburquerque, 1997). 2.3.1.1.5. Territorial Development In the search for new ways to overcome poverty, rural territorial development is the subject of increasing debate in Latin America (Moncayo, 2001). A main tenet of the approach is that economic development has regional, territorial, local, and community dimensions (Alasia, 2003). Rural territorial development can be seen as a process of productive and institutional transformation of a rural region or territory, whose final purpose is to reduce rural poverty. Productive transformation aims at improving production processes, in other words, innovation, in such a way that they better link to opportunities and agents that are able to improve competitiveness in markets and sustainability. The approach also postulates that productive transformation and institutional development should be addressed simultaneously, and that measures aimed toward improved competitiveness,

39 technological innovation, and linkages to markets need to be establishedand the best way would be on a contractual basis that allows exchange of knowledge, acquiring of skills, and partnering among various innovative agents (Shejtman and Berdegu, 2004). Here the territorial approach overlaps with the concept of local innovation networks, which are aimed at understanding agent relationships that lead to the introduction of new knowledge and technology in social and/or productive processes. However, little empirical evidence has yet been gathered on the efficacy of the approach. Among its main challenges is the need to define lines of action and policies that mobilize the underutilized productive potential of local territorial resources and foster innovation, local complementarities, and social inclusion of the poor. 2.3.1.2. Innovation Systems Agricultural innovation system evolved directly from the concept of national innovation system with the sectoral level as the unit of analysis and may be defined, as a result of multiple definitions, as a set of agents that jointly and/or individually contribute to the development, diffusion and use of agriculture-related new technologies and that directly and/or indirectly influence the process of technological change in agriculture (Tugrul and Ajit, 2002). The agricultural innovation system (AIS) comprises a far broader set of actors than the traditional agricultural research, extension, and education agencies and the organizations also include credit institutions, policy and regulatory bodies, private consultants/NGOs, farmers, farmers associations and public services delivery organizations. It emphasizes agricultural innovations and goes beyond previous knowledge system concepts by incorporating the goals of current reform measures, such as political decentralization, public sector alliances with the private sector, enabling private sector participation in advancing consensus approach to development and promoting demand-driven services. Besides, it captures the intricate relationships between diverse actors, processes of institutional learning and change, market and non-market institutions, public policy, poverty reduction and socioeconomic development. The key commodity linking these agents is knowledge. Although knowledge is a difficult commodity to characterize, knowledge may be scientific or technical in nature, or it may be organizational or managerial. It may occur in a codified or explicit form, or it may be more tacit or implicit. It may originate from foreign sources of discovery or emerge from the use or reorganization of internal and indigenous practices and behaviors (Clark, 2002; Malerba, 2002). Knowledge rarely presents itself in a form that can be immediately introduced into some social or economic practice. An individuals or organizations ability to identify, translate, and use existing knowledge to create something new is referred to here as innovative capacity and is central to the study of an innovation system (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990).

40 Individual innovative capacities represent the foundations of an innovation system and belong to individual actors, such as scientific researchers, postsecondary educators, extension agents, entrepreneurs, and farmers (Renzulli, 2003). However, because individuals rarely innovate in isolation, their capacities must be improved by collective systems (private firms, professional associations, or innovation networks) which are embedded with collective innovative capacities (Dosi; et al, 2000; behaviors to create environments that allow individual and collective expressions of innovative capacities. Because innovation results primarily from the exchange and use of knowledge, the nature of interactions between and among agents is a factor that needs to be considered. Interactions may be spot market exchanges of goods and services that embody new knowledge or technology; costless exchanges of knowledge conducted in the public domain; long-term, durable exchanges that incorporate complex contractual arrangements and learning processes; local- or community-level systems of knowledge sharing; or hierarchical command structures. The study of how agents structure their interactions in the exchange of knowledge gives the innovation systems framework its definitive systems perspective. An innovation system is also characterized by innovation policies. Innovation policies focus on enhancing a countrys capacity to discover, imitate, adapt, exchange, and otherwise use knowledge in social or economic processes (Arnold and Bell, 2001). They include policies in agriculture, industry, trade, finance and investment, education, science, and technology and provide leverage points for strengthening an innovation system and the networks contained within it. Moreover, innovation policies apply to both the formal and informal sources of innovation. Thus, although innovation policies may target the development of formal national agricultural research and extension organizations, other types of policies may emphasize efforts to promote indigenous innovation by extending credit to small-scale entrepreneurs and artisans. By adopting an AIS perspective, bigger issues come into focus than when adopting a more limited NARS or AKIS concept. By starting at the knowledge-application end, the question of why farmers innovate or why they dont becomes a major issue for debate and research. What are the constraints that hold them back? Is it the prices in the market, for example, or the lack of (or lack of access to) technology? Are farmers passive recipients of technology or do they actively search for innovations? What are the roles of input suppliers, cooperatives, traders, processors, NGOs, and government-extension services in technology diffusion? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of each diffusion channel? How can they be improved and what can be done to reach more farmers? In answering these questions, we may learn that the most critical bottleneck is not the lack of available technology, but whatever prevents other factors from playing their often-far-more-crucial role. Hall and Yoganand (2002) argue that when applying innovation system to agriculture in developing countries, it may provide the following features:

41
1. It focuses on innovation as its organizing principles. Here the concept of innovation is used in its broad sense as the activities and processes associated with the generation, production, distribution, adaptation and use of new technical, institutional, organizational and managerial knowledge. 2. Conceptualizes research as part of the wider process of innovation and extends its tentacle to identify actors and their scope, and the wide set of relationships in which research is embedded. 3. Recognize the importance of both technology producers and technology users and acknowledge that their roles are both context specific and dynamic. 4. It recognizes that the institutional context of the organizations involved (and particularly the wider environment that governs the nature of relationships) promotes dominant interests and determines the outcome of the system as a whole. 5. It recognizes that innovation systems are social systems. It therefore focuses not only on the degree of connectivity between different elements but also on the learning and adaptive process that make systems dynamic and evolutionary. 6. Matches better with the non-linear interactive concept of innovation. 7. It is more holistic including the final step (application) in the innovation process and incorporates ideas from various disciplines. 8. It stresses the importance of linkages among different actors. 9. It is only a framework for analysis and planning and can draw on a large body of existing tools in literature. For instance, its early application started with introducing the concepts such as institutional learning and change, and the relationships between innovation and institutional context in which innovations occur.

The IS approach goes further than the NARS or the AKIS models, focusing on core and more peripheral agents in the innovation process, the interaction among them, and the rules, policies, and institutions that guide agents and their interactions. It also shifts the emphasis from research and technology transfer to the innovation process itself. Innovation is the successful introduction of anything new in social and/or economic processes. As such it is the farmer or any other productive agent and not the researcher or extensionist who innovates. Consequently innovations do not always originate from formal research and development, nor are they all exclusively technical. This new perspective puts more emphasis on the roles of farmers, input suppliers, transporters, processors, and markets in the innovation process. Adopting the innovation systems perspective to agricultural and rural development enables us to investigate issues traditional technology transfer theory could not deal with, such as: Why do farmers innovate? What constraints hold them back? What are the roles of input suppliers, associations, neighbors, traders, processors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, extensionists, and whole social networks in technology development and diffusion? To what extent do farmers orient towards existing opportunities for innovation and to what extent do farmers get involved in processes of knowledge adaptation? An important issue here is what parts various agents play in an innovation system and how they are linked to other agents. Paterson, Adam, and Mullin (2003) have proposed a practical approach to agricultural innovation systems that distinguishes between (1) the government functions of policy formulation, priority setting, allocation of funds and incentives, and regulation, and (2) the functions of financing, carrying out research, diffusion, creation of linkages, information transfer, and

42 infrastructure, for which governments and innovation actors and stakeholders would share joint responsibility. To conclude the preceding discussion on agricultural innovation policymaking, one could say that various newer theories suggest that policymakers, while they may draw from a possibly large set of information and analyses, should concentrate on setting broad policies on the macro level and deal with issues of priority setting and planning as well as financing and enable the collaboration and exchange of information among various public and private agents in the generation and diffusion of innovation. On the local level, policies should provide strong incentives to innovation processes that involve local agents and knowledge and technology providers such as research institutions and advisory services. Innovation takes place throughout the whole economy, and not all innovations have their origin in formal science and technology nor are they all exclusively technical. This new perspective places more emphasis on the role of farmers, input suppliers, transporters, processors and markets in the innovation process. While each of the three system concepts has its own strengths and weaknesses, they can be seen as interlinked and cumulative: NARS focuses on the generation of knowledge, AKIS on the generation and diffusion of knowledge, and AIS on the generation, diffusion, and application of knowledge. Speilman (2005) concluded that the application of innovation system analytical framework to agriculture is embedded within the wider context of institutional change, change process, and answers certain questions that the linear, conventional research and systems are unable to address. 2.3.1.2.1. Introduction of IS in Agriculture in Developing Countries Much has been written on innovation systems (IS), especially in industrialized economies; and because of its success, it has recently been introduced in developing countries contexts (Muchie et al., 2003; Hall 2005; Spielman et al., 2006; World Bank 2007). Innovation systems research and studies goes back to the 1980s at the Science and Technology Policy Research SPRU at Sussex University where Keith Pavitt was certainly aware of this work, even if he was not directly involved in it., however, there were some researchers who were working on it before (Babbage, 1832, 3rd Edition; List, 1931 and Marshall (1965). The idea of innovation system is grounded in the concept of national systems of production (List, 1841). According to Lundvall (2003), Freeman (1982), they were the first who used the term national system of innovation in an unpublished paper. On the other hand when tracking influences on agricultural innovation, preliminary studies on innovation are pointed to Adam Smith ([1776] 1993), who first noted the influence of innovation (new production techniques and new divisions of laboron output and society. However, it was Ricardos work (1821) that provide a useful starting point for a discussion of both orthodox (neoclassical) and heterodox economic perspectives on innovation and technological change in agriculture.

43 Ricardos analysis captured the fundamental challenges of agricultural production: lands diminishing marginal returns, and the importance of technology in shifting agricultural production possibilities. In his research, Ricardo distinguished between two types of technology: the first that the land-saving techniques of production undertaken in early 19thcentury Englandcrop rotation, water management, and intensive use of livestock manure to preserve soil fertilitythat combined several inputs to increase output per unit of land (increases the productivity powers of the land); and the other described the use of improved agricultural tools and machines that substituted capital for labor (obtains its produce with less labor)did not have effect on land productivity (p. 54). Here, Ricardo provided an early analytical framework for studying the form and nature of innovation and its impact on social and economic well being. Ricardos analysis gave rise to further interest in the social and economic effects of technological change by such classical political economists as List (1841), Mill ([1848] 1965), and Marx ([1894] 1990). In fact, it is List who is credited with the earliest description of a national system of political economya precursor to the innovation system conceptin which production results not only from the activities of the firm but also from those social and economic institutions (education, infrastructure) that make production possible (Lundvall et al., 2002; Freeman, 1995). Leontieff (1941) further contributed with his celebrated input/output analysis that established an industry level system approach to production used later by scholars to explain innovative processes. However, it was Schumpeter ([1934] 1961; 1939) who laid the cornerstone of the modern innovation systems approach. Schumpeter provided the first nuanced definition of technological change by distinguishing between invention, innovation, and diffusion. He added further nuance to the concept of innovationdefined as any addition to the existing body of technical knowledge or know-how that results in an outward shift of the production function and a downward shift of the associated cost curvesby distinguishing between product, process, and organizational innovation (1939, p. 87; [1934] 1961, p. 66; Blaugh, 1996, pp. 454455). But Schumpeters real insights were in his analysis of the market and institutional conditions that generate innovation. In the Schumpeterian system, technological change results from the innovative activities of large firms that are afforded market power at the expense of short-term social welfare (Nelson and Winter, 1982). Innovation is thus endogenously determined by the behavior of the entrepreneur and his or her financiers, and by the institutions of private property, business traditions, and capitalist competition (Clemence and Doody, 1966:47). In sum, Schumpeter suggested that innovation results from the character of social and economic institutions, and that institutions change in response to innovation, that is, that the relationship between society and innovation is endogenously determined. Then, the idea was taken by scholars in both Europe and the United States networking with Freeman and his colleagues at SPRU. Lundvall (1985) at Aalborg University published a book in 1985 in which the concept innovation system, although without the adjective national. The first publication using the term

44 national innovation system was Freemans book on Japan (Freeman, 1987). The following year an edited volume on Technology and Economic Theory (edited by Dosi et al., 1988) contained four chapters on national innovation systems (Freeman, 1988; Lundvall, 1988; Nelson, 1988; Pelikan, 1988). Another book published the same year (Freeman and Lundvall, 1988) also contained a couple of chapters on national innovation systems (Andersen and Lundvall, 1988; Gregersen, 1988). The initial work of innovation systems at the national level inspired others in applying it to regional level (Asheim and Getler, 2004); sectoral (Malerba, 2002 and 2004), technological (Carlsson and Stankiewitz, 1995) and corporate levels (Grantstrand, 2006). The achieved from all these contributions, was the deviation of linear approach to technological progress and considered innovations at the micro, meso and and macro level as a driving force behind growth. (Lundvall, Vang, Joseph, & Chaminade, 2009). It went beyond the narrow restrictions of product and process innovation, focusing on interactive learning and emphasized inter-dependence and non-linearity wherein institutions play the central role (Joseph, 2006). After working under the NIS perspective, researchers and academics recognized that depending on the purpose of the inquiry, the most useful definition of innovation systems might not coincide with national borders. In 1988, a group of Swedish scholars began parallel work on technological systems, in which techno- economic areas were focused. These systems may have links to supporting institutions elsewhere; yet, these may or may not be geographically and institutionally localized within nations or regions. This work has resulted in a stream of publications beginning with Carlsson and Stankiewicz (1991) and summarized in books edited by Carlsson (1995, 1997, 2002). Later on, the term regional innovation systems was used, and focused on innovative activities within geographic regions at the subor supra-national level (Cooke, 1992). Similarly, in 1997 the notion of sectoral innovation systems was launched (Breschi and Malerba, 1997). Thus, there are now four definitions of innovation systems commonly used in the literature: national, regional, sectoral and technological. In addition, recently there has emerged a branch of literature dealing with other concepts of innovation systems, particularly at the firm level (Hall, 2010). 2.3.1.2.1.1. Strengthening Capacities

The overall performance of a particular system of innovation depends partly on the existence of a critical mass of relevant players, such as companies, government ministries and universities. But it also reflects the ability of these organizations to carry out important functions, such as R&D, the provision of technical services, and the development of policy. In developing countries, technological learning defined as the process of accumulating a capacity to innovate usually results from the experience gained during a series of increasingly complex activities. Initially these tend to focus on the acquisition of foreign technologies, and their imitation. Subsequently there are attempts to modify imported technologies through

45 incremental changes. Finally as illustrated by the newly industrialized countries in East Asia an indigenous capacity to carry out R&D-based innovation can emerge. In relation to promoting local innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and natural resource management, efforts are underway to build multi-stakeholder partnerships in ARD by entering through the window of identifying local innovations. We refer here primarily of the experience of the Prolinnova programme, which builds on the experience of its predecessors PFI (Promoting Farmer Innovation) and ISWC (Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation). In Africa, Prolinnova (Promoting Local Innovation in ecologically-oriented agriculture and NRM) includes programmes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Niger, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. New programmes are emerging in still more African countries (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, and Senegal). Similar work is underway in several countries of Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific. (Waters-Bayer, van Veldhuizen, Wongtschowski, & Wettasinha, 2006) In each country, a national NGO is facilitating multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote participatory research and development, taking local innovations as starting points. The Country Programmes share common values and concepts, but are autonomous in their activities and design their own plan of action. In each country, somewhat different methods are applied, but the essence of each programme consists of: Identifying and giving recognition to innovations developed by local people Participatory Innovation Development (PID): entering into partnerships at field level that bring difference sources of knowledge, ideas and skills together, focused on joint exploration or experimentation starting from the local innovations identified Combining forces of the different stakeholders involved to bring about policy and institutional change so that more space for PID processes can be opened up. Capacity-development activities accompany and strengthen all of the above. They usually take the form of learning through action and reflection. The personal change is the first step towards institutional change, i.e. changes in the way people in organisations think and behave and organise themselves for interaction with others. When formal researchers and extensionists and their managers examine how the structures and procedures in their institutions help or hinder their efforts to engage in local innovation processes, they begin to see what needs to be changed. In the national multi-stakeholder Prolinnova platforms, people from governmental and non-government organisations find space for mutual learning and devising strategies for policy influence and institutional change. Government policy should respond to the needs of both countries and organizations at each stage of this evolutionary process. For example, at an early stage of a country's economic development, policies should support efforts to imitate and

46 adapt foreign technologies, as well as increase the education levels of the population. As the capacity to adapt technologies increases, policy measures should focus increasingly on strengthening R&D capabilities particularly those relevant to local needs -- in the business sector, in higher education institutions (such as universities), and in public research laboratories. Equally importantly, organizations and government ministries responsible for drawing up and implementing policy must develop the capacity to carry out these tasks effectively. Furthermore the capacity to formulate and implement such policies should not remain an exclusive privilege of the state. Other stakeholders such as firms, universities and research organisations need to develop the capabilities to participate in the policy process. 2.3.1.2.1.2. Supporting Networking

Finally, developing countries need to address the fact, that the efficient operation of a system of innovation involves not only the activities of its component parts, but also the interaction among them. Furthermore, such interdependence is important both for producing and distributing knowledge, and for developing policy. It is important for stakeholders to interact in policy issues in order to ensure that their demands are represented in discussions around such issues. The networks created in this way also help to improve coordination among policy initiatives. Indeed, policy-oriented networks that link not only individuals but also organizations can reduce the dangers of unintentional (or intentional) bias against specific interests, and help build a consensus around an agreed course of action. As far as the knowledge-oriented networks are concerned, the main form of learning particularly in private companies, even in the most advanced of developing countries remains assimilating and adapting technologies developed elsewhere. These activities are usually carried out in-house, and seldom require the input of knowledge from other sources. Despite this limited demand for external inputs, there are isolated cases where networks for technological learning and innovation in developing countries have developed successfully. But in general, such networks are either weak, or absent. They tend to emerge in response to intra-organizational factors such as an organizations' level of both absorptive and generative capabilities and the incentives of external policies. Such policies should therefore focus on the need to strengthen the demand for knowledge in the business sector, and to support investments in research and development that respond to the types of demand encountered at each stage of development.

47 3. Core Question: How Does GAD Inform Innovations Systems in Agriculture? Gender informs innovation systems in agriculture by concentrating in the ways roles are performed by men as well as women and how these influence AIS and gender relations given between men and women. First of all, understanding gender roles involves looking beyond differences in activities between men and women to also looking at differences in activities between different women and between different men, as mediated by factors such as age, wealth and marital status. It is important to look at what different women and men are doing and what affect this has on their livelihood options. Gender studies emphasize at whether these roles change over time, in order to gain a greater understanding of how flexible gender roles and relationships can be; what factors can influence their change, and how this room for maneuver may be used to improve access to innovation opportunities. To understand how gender shapes activities and functioning of AIS and at the same time understand gender impacts of AIS, it is necessary to examine women's and men's roles and responsibilities, access to and control over resources, knowledge base, and participation to make decisions. 3.1. Gender Roles and Responsibilities While both women and men are involved in economic activities such as farming to sustain food production, women have additional responsibilities, which include housekeeping, food preparation, fetching water and wood, childcare and maintaining family health. Although men have primary responsibility for harvesting and storing crops, maintaining equipment, and hunting, fishing, and gathering, almost exclusively outside the home. In understanding these differences, it is important to note that gender roles are determined by what are recognized as five general patterns of gender responsibility in agriculture (Sims Feldstein & Poats, 1989); (1) Separate enterprises, women and men are responsible for production and removal of different crops and livestock within the household production system. Women may specialize in certain crops while also working with men in the production of others. Women may grow subsistence crops while men grow cash crops; or horticultural crops to mens cereal crops. Women may also specialize in poultry, small ruminants, gathering of wild crops, vegetables or tree crops, beans, cowpeas and other legumes. Women grow different crops than men for different purposes, a situation that is not properly recognized. (2) Separate fields, Women and men produce the same crops but in different fields. Womens crops tend usually to be for home consumption and local markets, whereas mens may have a regional or national market. (3) Shared Tasks, men and women share tasks on the same crop. In many systems, only labor-intensive tasks such as weeding and harvesting are shared. This may suggest greater flexibility in meeting labor demands for the activity. (4) Separate tasks, men prepare the ground while women plant or transplant the crop. Mostly, women engage in seed selection and storage. Plowing is done by men in most systems. Womens tasks also often include processing and storing of cereals, vegetables, tree crops dairy products, and care of animals when

48 they are young and sick. (5) Women-managed farms, in some situations women assume a big responsibility like farm management. There are two possible scenarios here: De facto: This occurs when men work away from the farm while women manage in their absence. In many systems women become the effective farm managers, sometimes with significant resources, but lack legal authority to sign credit agreements and commit resources. Migration is one factor that influences women's workload. High rates of male out-migration from rural areas in search of employment have exacerbated women's work burdens. De jure: This exists in legal women-headed households, which tend to be poor, with few resources and severe labor constraints (Sims Feldstein & Poats, 1989). 3.2. Knowledge Base Women and men are both sources of knowledge about sustainable resource management practices, but they may know about different species and practices according to their activities. Crops in many instances are gendered (Rojas, 2003). Womens situations, concerns, technological skills, use of technologies, and knowledge are often overlooked. Women have often been displaced and marginalized by science and technology development, with many of their activities becoming sidelined or taken over by men (UNCSTD, 2004). Women possess much of the worlds local knowledge on natural resource management, herbs and medicinal plants. To date, intellectual property rights (IPR) have tended not to take into account gender attitudes and access to resources, since female ownership and rights do not tend to be valued equally. Gendered knowledge also varies by class, age, and ethnicity, underscoring its complexity. An older man from the same group may have different ways of working with land and forests than a young man living outside his native community; the same applies for women (American States, 2006). Understanding the different knowledge of women and men in different socioeconomic circumstances helps to determine appropriate and sustainable interventions. The gendering of knowledge, including knowledge for managing agricultural systems, has four key characteristics (Norem. R, Yoder & Martin, 2001). (1) Women and men have knowledge about different things; (2) Men and women have different knowledge about the same things; (3) Women and men may organize their knowledge in different ways and; (4) Men and women may receive and transmit their knowledge by different means. 3.3. Participation in decision-making processes It is a common observation that within the home, as outside it, power and authority tend to rest on men. However, women have their own areas of authority. Women decide on how their children will be raised and educated, how earnings will be allocated, when and how much of their crop harvest will be sold, and what to feed their families (FAO., 1995). In contrast, men have greater say in such matters as investment and loans. This limited participation in decision-making means that womens perspectives, needs, knowledge, and proposed solutions are often ignored. In addition, failure to take account of women's and men's activities and to include

49 both in the decision-making process can lead to policies that may affect either negatively. 3.4. Gender Relations Today there are many definitions of gender. In general, gender has frequently been misunderstood as being only about the promotion of women (Moser, 1992). However, gender focuses on the relationship between men and women, their roles, access to and control over resources, division of labour and needs (Papart; et al, 2000). The term gender refers to the differences and relationships formed socially between men and women that vary in situation, context and time. The gender approach facilitates understanding of other interrelated social variables (Schmink in Poats, Arroyo and Asar, 1998, p.6) The nature of gender relations, relations of power between women and men, is not easy to grasp in its full complexity. But these relations impinge on economic outcomes in multiple ways (World Development, 1995). Gender relations influence how communities, households, and institutions are organized, how decisions are made, and how resources are used (Sass, 2001) Therefore, gender relations determine household security, well-being of the family, planning, agricultural production and many other aspects of the agricultural life. Failure to take into account gender relationships leads to unsuccessful extension activities, and the marginalization of the disadvantaged sector of society and a large part of the agricultural workforce. Gender is a social category distinct from sex. Sex is the biological attributes that a man and women carry with them (Reeves and Baden, 2000). These ideas and practices are sanctioned and reinforced by a host of cultural, political, and economic institutions, including the household, legal and governance structures, markets, and religion. While gender roles vary among cultures and over time, and are crosscut by a multitude of identities (e.g. ethnicity and class), the gender division of labor usually implies that men and women are relegated to the public and private spheres, respectively (Moser, 1993; Agarwal, 2000; 2001; Kabeer, 1994; King and Mason, 2001; Lind, 1997; Quisumbing, 2003). Women are thought to be natural caregivers and men benevolent dictators who adequately supply material needs to their families (Bruce, 1989; Moser, 1993; Sen, 2000). This means that men undertake public activities, e.g. remunerative work and market activities, membership in formal community organizations, and participation in political institutions. Womens activities, in turn, often are constrained to household and community management activities (childcare, food preparation, subsistence agriculture). Moser (1993) refers to women assuming a triple role, as they are responsible for reproductive, productive, and community management activities, and receive little recognition for their unpaid work. Another way of broadly characterizing gender

50 roles is that men take the lead in productive activities, and women in reproductive activities, where the latter include the reproduction of the family and even of society itself. The unitary view of the household suggests that in the gender division of labor, women and mens roles and responsibilities are separate but complement one another. The accuracy of this model however, has been called into question by anthropologists for at least two decades and more recently by economists who find that gender is an important determinant of the distribution of rights, resources, and responsibilities within the household (Agarwal 1992; Alderman et al, 1995; Haddad et al. 1997; Pryer 2003; Quisumbing 2003; Sen 1990). For example, Sen (1990) proposes a bargaining model of the household typified by cooperative conflict. Household members cooperate so long as doing so improves their individual position. The extent of cooperation depends on members contributions to the household, access to asset endowments, and the consequent strength of their fall- back position. Ones fallback position also is based in part on the perception of each members contributions to the household (Agarwal 1997a; Moser 1993; Sen 1990). Because women often undertake more reproductive (household management) tasks and fewer productive (wage-earning) tasks, they are commonly perceived as contributing less to household welfare than men. Finally, because of the social norms that restrict womens sphere of activity, their access to additional human, social, natural, and financial capital is limited. Womens negotiating power within the household is low compared to mens and their reduced ability to negotiate further perpetuates gender inequality. While gender is a source of power differentials that shape womens and mens access to a range of resources, gender can also serve as an organizing principle for collective action; an identity around which women (or men) may organize in response to constraints within the household or the broader social environment (Catacutan, Mercado, & Marcelino, 2000). Defining gender as an organizing principle does not imply that women are a homogeneous group defined only by their gendered interests but rather that gender is one source of identity that women may mobilize around at local, national and transnational levels. Gender represents a multifaceted set of relations and roles and characteristics that are related to a man or a woman biological sex that also entails social meanings, positions and relationships to others as man or woman. Gender is socially constructed and it is the reason why is interpreted through social interactions that differ across time, space and culture (Bezner Kerr, 2008). The complexity arises not least from the fact that gender relations like all social relations; embody both the material and the ideological. They are revealed not only in the division of labour and resources between women and men (Moser, 1993; Agarwal, 2000; 2001; Kabeer, 1994; King and Mason, 2001; Lind, 1997; Quisumbing, 2003) but also in ideas and representationsthe ascribing to women and men of different abilities, attitudes, desires, personality traits, behavior patterns. The study of gender relations explores the different and often highly uneven roles, responsibilities, access to resources, authority, decision-making patterns and

51 perceptions about gender held between men and women within societies. Neither are these uniform across societies nor historically static. Gender relations are both constituted by and help constitute these practices and ideologies, in interaction with other structures of social hierarchy such as class, caste, and race that influence social outcomes and interact with gender in different ways (German & Taye, 2008). To make the gender variable operational, we speak of gender analysis (GA)13. GA includes the careful analysis of gender roles and internal dynamics between households and between social actors within a working area and its zones of external influence, and the application of this analysis to decisions in an activity or project. So, gender analysis is the systematic effort to document and understand mens and womens roles in a determined context (Reeves, February 2000). In this analysis it is fundamental to consider (1) the division of work in productive, reproductive, community management and natural resource management activities; (2) the access to resources and benefits derived from said activities, as well as their control; and (3) the social, economic, institutional and environmental factors that condition the two aforementioned aspects. In gender analysis, the focus is in understanding the relationships between genders regarding a need, problem, conflict or specific context. The key components of gender relation analysis include: (1) Definition of gender roles within the context; (2) Determination of how the roles influence the division of the work force and local knowledge; (3) Analysis of the differentiated values allotted locally to roles and knowledge; (4) Analysis of differentiated access to different resources, benefits, services and capabilities of decision-making owing to differentiated evaluation; and (5) Analysis of the power and control relations resulting from a differentiated evaluation of work and access that supports maintaining existing relations and gender roles. Gender analysis is useful as an agricultural innovation systems tool because it helps in: 1. Breaking with stereotypes such as man works the land, woman minds the home, 2. Revealing roles, typical invisible activities and knowledge of both women and men, 3. Assuring representation of social diversity in all aspects of participatory agricultural innovation systems. 4. And revealing the multiple institutions and social groups within a community that must be considered and included in participatory agricultural innovation systems. Mny theorethical approaches have informed research in gender relations. Esther Boserup, brought a new attempt to conceptualize and analyze the role of women in agricultural systems by examining womens roles in different farming systems and
GA is the systematic gathering and examination of information on gender differences and social relations in order to identify, understand and redress inequities based on gender
13

52 how such cultural practices as dowries and bride price are related to womens economic status (Boserup, 1970). Around that time, womens issues were brought to various international and national bodies. The Conference of the Status of Women raised the profile of what were framed as uniquely womens issues within the UN system, and the establishment of the Office of Women in Development within the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) brought development issues specific to women within the sphere of official development assistance. The 1975 UN Mexico City Conference on Women that happened together with the first international Womens Year highlighted the need for enhanced legal rights for women and for their economic empowerment. The most recognizable outcome of the conference, in terms of development policy and planning, was the adoption of women in development (WID) approach. WID s focal point was on enhancing womens access to training and resources, emphasizing womens individual legal rights to social, economic and political advancements that became an operating guideline for development agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. The WID approach brought attention to the issue of gender equality as well as money to womens programming. By the end of the 1980s, concerns aroused in relation that WID approach was inclined to marginalize womens concerns concentrating in specifically womens office or program as they were ignored inside the most significant development policies. And also, individual rights were emphasized from a strong western position that ignored structural economic inequalities (Rathgeber, 1990). In the 1990s a new approached became known based on the argument that considering womens issues in a package was counterproductive and that a fundamental change in gender relations required the integration of mens perspectives and concerns with those of women. The gender and development approach (GAD) encouraged what became known as gender mainstreaming which is the integration of gender concerns into all development programs (Young et al, 1984). At the same time, GAD emphasizes the diversity of cultural perspectives on gender issues in the globe and the need to take participatory, empowerment approaches to addressing the needs of poor women in developing countries (Young, 2002). 3.5. Gender entails differences in power and knowledge production Gender orders social relationships in a way that some individuals exercise and bargain power. It is considered as a multidimensional and interlinked process of change in power relations (Mayoux, 2000) and consists of: (1) Power within, enabling women to articulate their own aspirations and strategies for change. This type of power is shaped by ones identity and self-conception of agency, as well as by outside forces held by the other (Kabeer, 1994; Nelson &Wright, 1995 and Rowlands, 1995). (2) Power to, enabling women to develop the necessary skills and access the necessary resources to achieve their aspirations. It refers to the ability to act and often requires access to social resources such as education, money,

53 land and time. Women usually have less power to: inherit land etc. Women are less likely to develop individual characteristics (such as higher levels education or participate actively in extension programs) that limit them to enhance them this type of power. (3) Power with, enabling women to examine and articulate their collective interests, to organize, to achieve them and to link with other women and mens organizations for change; and (4) Power over, changing the underlying inequalities in power and resources that constrain womens aspirations and their ability to achieve them. Power relations operate in different spheres of life (economic, social, and political) and at different levels (individual, household, community, market, institutional). These dimensions of power focus at some point on the repressive side of power (Gaventa; et al, 2009) and conceptualize power as a resource that individuals gain, hold and wield. Individuals with power over are able to asset their wishes and goals even in the face of opposition from others. Women generally have less power over than men in all facets of society. They usually have less say than their husbands in family decisions and less authority than men in the management of resources. Because women hold far fewer positions in governing bodies in cooperatives, rural organizations, they have little impact on decision-making or public policies. Gender inequality may also be structured and perpetuated by the economy, the political system, and other social institutions. Civil law and religious customs in various countries, for example, may restrict a womans ability to own land or work in certain occupations in agriculture. Therefore, it is very important to understand the notions of relationships of power and knowledge to promote women and less favored groups inclusion in agro ecological practices. Other see power as productive and relational (Gaventa; et al, 2009), in that sense, power is converted into a multiplicity of force relations (Foucault, 1979), which constitutes social relationships. It subsists only through action and works through institutions and practices that are productive of power effects, framing the boundaries of possibility that govern action (Gaventa; et al, 2009). Knowledge is power: power and knowledge directly imply one another because knowledge is a resource of power (Gaventa; et al, 2009). Finally, Hayward reconceptualizes power as a network of social boundaries that constrain and enable action of all actors (Hayward, 1998). Power relation does not exist without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations (Foucault, 1977). The differences in views do not necessarily show these approaches as competing, it is better to think them as complementing each other, each with differing points in addressing mutually reinforced levels of power. Power begins to resemble Gramscian notions of hegemony (Entwistle, 1979) or Frerian ideas of the ways in which knowledge is internalized to develop a culture of silence of the oppressed (Freire, 1981). Countering power entails using and producing knowledge in a way that affects popular awareness and consciousness of the issues that affect lives (Gaventa; et al, 2009). There are countless examples of how consciousness transformation has made a contribution to social transformation. New social movement theory recognizes the importance of consciousness by raising such issues as the

54 development of collective identity, and of the construction of meaning and of culture in galvanizing citizen action (Morris, 1984; Mueller, 1992). Individually, the approaches to power bring with them implicit or more explicit conceptions of knowledge, and how it relates to power as well as strategies to give and use power. In some cases, knowledge is a resource, used and mobilized to inform decision-making on key public issues. In other cases, knowledge is produced for including or excluding certain voices. Finally, the last alternative is the emphasis is more upon the ways in which production of knowledge becomes a method for building greater awareness and more authentic self-consciousness of ones issues and capacities for action (Gaventa; et al, 2009). 3.6. The Root of the Problem: Gender and Unequal Access to Resources in Agricultural Systems Most of the literature alerts about the gender-specific constraints faced by poor female farmers (Gladwin, 2002) without considering mens constrains. Most of the studies point to womens lack of access to productive resources and low levels of human capital; the cost of these gender disparities in productive resources has been well documented (World Bank, 2001). Kevane (2004), for example, pays particular attention to possible inefficiencies in intrahousehold allocation and the interaction between economic factors and gender roles as constraints to improvements in productivity and well being in Sub-Saharan Africa. Doss (1999) also finds that African households are complex and heterogeneous, that gender roles are equally complex and embedded in agricultural and non-agricultural production systems, and that these roles and responsibilities are dynamic, responding to changing economic circumstances (Quisumbing & Pandolfelli, 2009). Recognizing that gender matters, many development interventions have aimed to close the gender gap in both human and physical resources. Interventions to improve womens health, education, and nutritional status are well documented (e.g., King, Klasen, & Porter, 2007). However, the literature on innovations that addresses the productive needs of poor female farmers is relatively limited, is typically confined to one key resource (such as land), does not consider the interactions among other resources, is not published however, the evident documentation showing the greater constraints that women face in access to, and control of, productive resources is quite voluminous (World Bank, 2001) Agricultural results are greatly influenced by gender relations in many forms (Bezner Kerr, 2008), and for that reason, the root of inequality in agriculture is surrounded by a large amount of misunderstandings and myths. Significant changes have occurred in the agricultural sector over the past twenty years, both in the role played by women and in the understanding of this role, but the continued absence of appropriate policy and program strategies mean that womens contribution to agriculture remains invisible. Even though women are considered as critical custodians of agriculture, they still have unequal access to resources in agriculture

55 and the institutions that support the sector (Razavi, 2006; Whiteside and Kabeer, 2001). This persistent failure to recognize and account for the value of womens knowledge and labour in the agricultural sphere, and to integrate the reality of womens situation into development theories, policies and programs, is evident throughout the global economic development environment. The absence of quantitative and qualitative data on womens role in agricultural and rural development is the most notable and hidden factor. Terms have not been defined or given a value to describe womens economic activity such as unpaid work or even family responsibilities (Quisumbing & McClafferty, 2006). Womens most fundamental role in society reproduction is very often given a negative value, as it is seen as interference to productive activities, a cause of lost income, lower productivity and increased costs. Neither is a value given to the emotional and social support women provide for the family and community, particularly with regard to child rearing. This absence of data is a significant omission in the data set used to formulate strategies for promoting gendered programs and promoting equal access to resources (Doss C. , 2001). Despite womens critical role in agriculture (globally they are responsible for at least fifty percent of food produced), women generally lack access to effective technologies and resources such as credit, extension, seed supply and labour saving devices. It is difficult for women to secure land and other forms of collateral to be able to access credit and increase their productive capacity (Alderman, Hoddinott, Haddad, & and Udry, 2003). Subsistence crop production, in which women are usually involved, still tends to receive less institutional support than cash crop production. The number of female extension officers can be limited, and as a result women may be less likely to receive agricultural extension services. The introduction of cash cropping can present problems for women's agricultural tasks. It may result in competition for labour and land that would if not be committed to producing food (FAO, 2005). Studies indicate that decision-making patterns about the use of productive resources vary greatly. Small farm households are not necessarily consensual or cohesive decision making units (as planners have generally assumed), but a complex interaction of needs, incentives, and interests of both male and female household members (Feldstein and Jiggins, 1994). There tends to be little consultation with women on the development of new technology, and therefore it is generally the men's tasks that benefit from improved technology. Often a greater proportion of female income is devoted to the family's basic needs and daily survival. Cultural factors can mean that agricultural work done by women and girls has little or no recognized economic value, even though it may be crucial for household survival. In many cases, the active participation of women in the agricultural sector has not been taken into account in the development of agricultural policies and agrarian reforms (CIDA, 1989). Environmental and demographic factors always need to be considered when planning and programming for agricultural development activities. Households headed solely by women may have very different needs from those where women and men are both active producers, and women-headed households are amongst the poorest in the world (Datta & McIlwaine, November 2000). Patterns of temporary, seasonal and

56 permanent migration (amongst males and females of all ages) may also seriously affect the likelihood of project success. Womens access to resources has frequently been delimited and mediated by fathers or husbands. As daughters or wives, they are part of a complex web of interactions entailing both cooperation and power plays, as households design livelihood strategies to map a pathway out of poverty (FAO, 2005). These livelihood strategies adapt to suit the womens asset endowments and account for the constraints imposed by market failures, state failures, social norms, and exposures to uninsured risks. Every aspect of these strategies has gender dimensions, whether through the different asset and opportunity sets of men and women, the constraints that men and women operate under, or the design of policies that set the household context in which the strategy is implemented (Herrera, 1999). A womans negotiating power is affected by her participation in economic activity, which itself depends on her asset endowment (including human capital) and her access to and control of the households assets (Mehra & Hill Rojas, 2008). The globalization process does not recognize womens knowledge on agriculture especially seed collection and preservation as well as the use of water, storage and protection of grains (Agarwal B. , November 2001). With the Patent law, women are even denied the right to preserve and promote their indigenous knowledge. Womens traditional knowledge and their access to common property are being eroded all over the world. Womens status in particular societies is quite dependent. Women are perceived as subjects or beneficiaries and that is why the state and national policies tend to provide only soft advantages (Argawal, 2003). Women are less likely than men to own land, and even when they do own land, their landholdings are smaller (Agarwal B. , 1997). Unfavorable marital and inheritance laws, family and community norms, and unequal access drive this inequality to markets. On the other hand, land titling programs in many countries have often reinforced mens land rights. The marked gendered character of land inequality must first be understood in the context of gendered division of agricultural labour (Brown & Das Chowdhury, 2002). When it comes to the question of women, governmental schemes are on credit- such as micro credit not macro credit, small savings not stock market or even not big companies. This is obviously discrimination and division based upon gender which is widespread in the national economic order (Wangari, 1996). Therefore government policies are hardly pro- poor and hence not women-friendly. The schemes designed are not appropriate and lack the womens perspective. Women own not even two percent of land, while the proportion of female heads of household continues to grow. Land reform programmes together with the break-up of communal landholdings have led to the transfer of exclusive land rights to males as heads of households that ignores both the existence of female-headed households and the rights of married women to a joint share (Kimani, 2008). The importance of womens land rights has become well established within research and development policy during the last years. Along with this there has been more

57 attention to what is often referred to as the gender wealth gap, referring to the lack of important productive assets as land and other natural resources women suffer from (Deere and Doss, 2006; Deere and Len, 2003; Katz, 2003). One of the most serious obstacles of rural women is their lack and security of land tenure. Land tenure refers to a set of rights which a person or organization holds in land. Security of tenure is not limited to private ownership but can exist in a variety of forms such as leases on public land or user rights to communal property (Akram-Lodhi. A & Borras, 2007). If tenure is secure, the holder can reasonably expect to use the land to its best advantage in accordance with the right, obtain a timely and fair return and be able to enforce the right against non-holders (Figueroa and Barrn, 2005). Tenure enables the holder to make management decisions on how land-based resources will be used for immediate household needs and long-term sustainable investment. In order for women farmers, who are responsible for 60 to 80 percent of the food production in developing countries, to use land more efficiently and thereby make a greater contribution to food security, they need access to land, management control of land-based resources and economic incentives that security of tenure provides (FAO, 2003). Women are often disadvantaged in both statutory and customary land tenure systems (Agarwal, 1994; Kevane, 2004; Lastarria-Cornhiel, 1997). Historically women's access to land was based on status within the family and involved right of use, not ownership (Shimwaayi & Chimedza, 1995). In Asia, the most prevalent barrier to acquiring real property is inheritance law that favour male inheritance over female. If a woman inherits property, her husband manages it. Hindu women formally hold property rights for life only; at death it reverts back to the male line. In Africa, custom rather than religious practice excludes women from ownership; property is held in a man's name and passed partrilineally within the group. A widow's right to remain on the land is not secure. In Latin America, discrimination results more from limited status under the law. Women, for example, may reach majority age at 21, but still represented by their husbands in all legal capacities (Katz, 2003). Legislative reform and the forces of modernization have had a mixed effect. Agrarian reform or resettlement programmes use the "head of family" concept, usually a male, as the basis of land reallocation. Few have significant numbers of female beneficiaries or even pay attention to gender as a beneficiary category. New legislation on equality for women is more applicable to the urban- employed class than rural persons; agricultural land is even excluded in some new inheritance schemes (Lastarria Cornhiel, 1997). Statutory reform of customary law is confusing and open to interpretation; when customary, religious or statutory systems coexist, the law least favourable to women is often selected. Traditional or customary systems that might have protected a woman's access to land during her lifetime are breaking down under population, economic and environmental pressures. Growing male rural-to-urban migration is leaving women as de facto heads of households without management authority over land resources. Even under resettlement schemes in irrigated areas, women de facto heads of households rarely benefit (Lastarria-Cornhiel, 2008).

58 In some cases, however, women have gained better access to land through land reform, generally where the participation of rural women is a well-defined state policy. For example, in Peru the land titling project PETT- Proyecto Especial de Titulacin de Tierras y Catastro Rural was initialized in 1992 with the objective of formalizing the legal situation of all rural properties in the country (MINAG 2007), and it has provided formal titles on about 1.9 million plots of rural land. A study reported by Orge, 2007 found that women are overall assigned more land rights when comparing with previous statistics on distribution of land rights by gender in Peru, as well as compared with the distribution of rights between men and women in the titled and the non-titled plots. Women have gained rights both individually and together with their partners as joint titles. However, there is still a great gender gap in land titles as men own significantly more plots, as well as larger plots than women (Orge, 2007). In some countries, agrarian reforms replaced the feudal system where women traditionally held a subordinate role in family production. Women's organizations in Thailand, China, Nicaragua, Malaysia and Cuba have helped to overcome existing barriers or to protect women's rights regarding inheritance of land. There are also many instances where women's organizations have fought to gain access to land that they farm collectively. On the other hand, a study carried out by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD, 2007) has found that women access to and control over land has not improved on a global level (UNISRD, 2007). Although, there are some contextually specific reasons for the failure of post- 1990s land titling, those programs that were successful like the Peruvian case, demonstrate that legal improvements alone are not likely to be a transformative force; they are part of an array of changes to needed to improve womens access to land, with the state, political parties and social movements named a having crucial rules in addressing rural womens needs in agriculture (Razavi, 2006). However, it is not only the access to land tenure that obstructs womens access to agriculture; it is also the possibility of having fertile soils and water use. Gender analysis is not present from stand-alone irrigation projects because such projects are highly technical and implemented by engineers who lack the training to integrate gender concerns (Rathgeber, 2003). Labor is another issue that needs to be considered. Low levels of human capital may be an important reason for low labor productivity, but the lack of technologies to reduce drudgery, particularly in domestic activities, is also an important constraint (Quisumbing & Pandolfelli, 2009). Because women shoulder the bulk of domestic responsibilities in most societies, women are unable to allocate their time to more productive (or remunerative) uses unless their labor productivity increases. Low levels of investment in human capital also constrains poor women in agriculture in their multiple roles as agricultural producers, workers, mothers, and caregivers (Behrman,Alderman, & Hoddinott, 2004 and King et al., 2007).

59 Access to new varieties and technologies is limited to women since traditional agricultural research and development systems typically do not consult female farmers and end-users, many improved varieties do not take into account womens needs, preferences, and resources, including womens distinct nutritional needs for micronutrient-fortified crops. Women and men often have different preferences for maturation periods, yields, tastes, and colors (Bourdillon et al., 2007). Although extension design is moving away from top-down, technology-driven, male- dominated approaches to demand driven, gender-sensitive approaches focusing on broader,inter-related issues and facilitation, the impact of these reforms on female farmers is still unclear. (Quisumbing & Pandolfelli, 2009). In relation to credit and financial services, collateral requirements, high transactions costs, limited education and mobility, social and cultural barriers, intermittency of employment, and the nature of womens businesses limit womens ability to obtain credit. Social norms may also prohibit women from receiving information from outside lenderswhich would be important if information is not fully transmitted from husband to wife. Under these conditions of imperfect information and barriers to access, various programs and interventions have attempted to design credit and insurance delivery systems to overcome womens constraints. When targeting women, differences across the life cycle also need to be considered. And also, in designing loan packages and variations on these for heterogeneous clientele, lenders need to explore innovative ways to meet clients needs, even if it means departing from a traditionally successful business model (Quisumbing & Pandolfelli, 2009). When accessing markets, In addition to typical production and market risks, such as theft and inadequate information about current market prices, female farmers face many gender-specific barriers to accessing markets. Modes of transportation may be culturally inappropriate for women. Market or health officials often harass women who market their wares just outside the market boundaries owing to the high cost of permits. Time burdens constrain women from seeking the best prices for their output. And marital conflict may ensue if fluctuating prices incite husbands to suspect that their wives are withholding money (Barham & Chitemi, 2008). Men may also appropriate crops for which women are traditionally responsible once they enter into the market economy and become profitable. In fact, female farmers risk losing control of their products as they move along the value chain from farm to market (World Bank,FAO, and IFAD, 2008). Finally, working with groups is a major mechanism through which development programs can enable women to increase their control of assets, improve their productivity, and enhance their status and well being. In fact, the social capital that groups generate has been recognized as an important asset in itself. But building social capital is not costless. Women in poor households face particularly serious time constraints because of their various livelihood activities and childcare responsibilities (Pandolfelli, Meinzen-Dick, & Dohrn, 2008).

60 3.6.1. Land tenure and Food Security Fifty percent of the world's resource-poor farmers are women, who also have primary responsibility for food security. Their success in meeting daily household needs depends on how well they manage and supplement a limited and delicately balanced set of resources: cropland, pasture and forest. Without land and secure tenure a woman cannot access credit and membership in agricultural associations, particularly those responsible for processing and marketing (FAO, 1997). If tenure is secure, a woman can invest in, rather than exploit, the land's productive potential and she is more likely to adopt environmentally sustainable farming practices. A woman has the ability to plan and quickly adjust resource allocation decisions under changing climate or economic conditions and relies on the productive results of her labor (IFPRI, 2000). Control of the product is also an important consideration in examining women's land rights. Security of tenure is often the key to having control over major decisions such as what crop to grow and what techniques to use as well as what to consume and what to sell. Given women's tendency to grow food as opposed to cash crops and to spend income on family food, security of tenure for women must be viewed as a key link in the chain from household food production to national food security (IFPRI, 2000). Access and control of both genders in agricultural resources should include access to land, labor, credit, capital, raw materials, inputs, farm equipment/tools, information, technology, and extension services. In most of the societies of developing countries, men has access and control of almost all the resources except for information since most of the time he stays in the farm and gets to interact less with sources of information. The women on the other hand, have access to all the factors mentioned except for labor. Women however do not have control over capital resource. The importance of addressing gender in agricultural innovation systems is also the knowledge of dealing with deeply embedded power relations, which are often legitimized by strongly cultural traditions, beliefs and prejudices. Power relations between men and women are complex, multi-dimensional and pervasive, a diversity of tools and angles are needed to disentangle and contest them (Lewis, 2004: 7). It is also known that both these relations of power and the beliefs surrounding them can change. Among some of the critical methodological shifts in gender studies in recent years has been the emphasis on understanding the power trajectories in gender relations instead of continuing to view these as being based upon altruistic notions. Gender inequalities are appraised in contextual realities at the micro level, namely, the position of women in the household. Thus, the emphasis is on analyzing how the weaker economic bargaining power of women is rooted in an unequal institutional and cultural paradigm (Sweetman, 1999). While there is bound to be resistance, there is huge scope for change, and rural men and women themselves are the primary agents of that change. But they need support and wider alliances - to influence current power structures in their favour (Mayoux, 2007).

61 The Innovation System process in agriculture has important gender dimensions that are quickly evolving. AIs from a gender perspective has to consider how the existing social constructions of gender influence the development or adoption of innovations in agriculture and also how these innovations influence the gender constructs (Padmanabhan, 2002). Men and women in the rural sector frequently grow different crops, rear different livestock, and perform different agricultural tasks. As the share of female-headeds households increases, these distinctions become less clear and women take on activities that were previously undertaken by men. But certain activities tend to remain womens responsibility, particularly growing food crops, and postharvest activities ranging from crop preservation to processing and storage. Women are also increasingly taking advantage of employment opportunities in high-value crops, such as fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, and flowers, which offer farmers the opportunity to compete for a share of export markets. Diversification to high-value export commodities offers farmers new opportunities of wage employment (in the processing and packing industries) and issues such as equal pay, job security, labor standards, and a safe working environment are very important for women. In many cases women farmers also enter into contracts to produce high-value crops for exporting companies. Agricultural research and extension agenda must reflect the needs of these often resource poor women farmers. Specific topics can include postharvest methods, market and price information, and information needed to comply with food safety standards. Men and women farmers tend to have different access to and control of resources, which can be a very important factor determining adoption of new technologies. When women lack secure tenure over land, they will be more reluctant to adopt land use practices that are environmentally sustainable but have high upfront cost and long lag periods before becoming economically productive, such as tree planting, irrigation infrastructure or terracing. Socioeconomic research livelihood approaches) used to identify research priorities of small-scale producers should map these enabling asset ownership issues. Compared to men, women generally are in charge of a wider range of crops; livestock and agro based activities, and perform a wider range of pre-planting and postharvest tasks. As men move into off-farm employment, womens farming roles and responsibilities expand further and evolve; however, as in the case of asset ownership, women farmers have often lacked access to technical information from extension agents. Women farmers have had less access to these services because they tend to have smaller farms and less voice in demanding services, the timing of meetings with extension workers does not fit the womens daily work routines; and also, there are cultural barriers for women to meet together with men or in some cases extension workers, mostly men, tend to prefer interaction with other men. An advantage to it is that technology providers are increasingly pluralistic, including input dealers, NGOs, and private agricultural companies. The means of facilitating the transmission of knowledge is also rapidly evolving, from one-on-one contact

62 between the extension agent and the farmer, to the use of information and communication technology (ICT). To address these challenges, the strengthening research systems and knowledge transfer gradually has been shifted from towards building innovation capacity, enhancing use of knowledge and creating social and economic change (World Bank, 2006). Parallel to these efforts at reforming and improving knowledge systems, the context and knowledge intensiveness of agriculture have changed rapidly and drivers of innovation are rapidly changing. Agricultural development is increasingly driven by globalization, urbanization and markets rather than by production; the role of the private sector in knowledge processes (in generation, use and dissemination) has significantly increased; ICT has radically changed the pace and accessibility of knowledge and information; the knowledge structure of agriculture is changing knowledge is increasingly relying on multiple knowledge providers, not that of public agricultural R&D and R&D organizations only (World Bank 2006). Within the AIS, women are considered to be critical actors, even though, AIS frameworks stress out that women is the centre of the programs, they do not ignore men at all however, men are not yet included inside womens groups. AIS is still deficient in the analysis of gender of some fundamental concerns, which are key to reducing poverty and promoting agricultural growth for development. However, innovation is viewed as a social and economic process that draws on discovery and invention but recognizes that the most important role that these innovations have is to improve the livelihoods of all people through innovating agricultural crops (FAO, World Bank, CGIAR, IFAD and IFPRI); and increasing their options to feed livestock (International Livestock Research Institute), especially those of women and other vulnerable groups where men are included, by using different approaches and resources. From the perspective of the AIS framework, the active engagement of women is no longer only a right but is an imperative to future farming, processing, and marketing systems that can improve livelihoods and agribusiness development (Byravan, 2008). This framework proposes that innovation involves not only new actors but also new roles and many relationships that can sustain knowledge generation and learning if technical and economic successes, together with social and environmental sustainability, are to be achieved (Spielman and Birner, 2008). Thus, innovation can be considered in the specific context of knowledge (generation of, access to utilization and sharing of it) and the progressive economic and social changes that go with it. Some scholars like Raina (2006) argue that AIS does not recognize social and technological innovation as being located in distinct categories and believe that they go hand in hand. Innovation is the generation, access to and utilization of knowledge and the progressive economic and social changes that go with it, she says. Social, technological and institutional innovations have to go together if we want a social practice or a technology to bring about a lasting transformation (Raina 2006). Considering AIS from this perspective, they believe the improvement of rural livelihoods essentially require non-formal education and capacity development to

63 remain within the category of public goods. Public research, policies and extension not only have to concentrate on natural resource management, human nutrition, and support to producer organizations; but also have to develop and or strengthen the capacity of the actors, institutions and networks. Capacity development and extension systems support the construction of human and social capacity in the AIS community, so that actors who are more vulnerable can successfully pursue new crops, livestock, fisheries, or other enterprises suitable for local resources, conditions, and market opportunities. It means that the traditional top-down, technology-driven extension model is transformed into a new approach that is more decentralized, farmer-centered, and market driven (Swanson, 2008b). Although the agricultural innovation system framework focuses on equality in access to technology, inputs, services, and markets, as well as on opportunities for participation, leadership, and equal representation as a means influencing policy-making processes, small-scale, women, and indigenous farmers continue to be left behind unless they receive effective support to build the organizational, technological, management, and investment capacity they will need to engage. The AIS approach can reach its stated potential to benefit small-scale women and men farmers if it develops mechanisms to foster their organization into groups based on common interests and resources so that they can consider the economic feasibility of producing and marketing. These groups will need to have access to support from research so that they can fine-tune technologies to specific conditions and they will need to develop the skills and practices needed to be able to meet export, sanitation, and certification requirements; and the most important, to determine which products can be feasibly produced and marketed. However, the most important is that female and male actors have to face the challenge to identify and develop organizations and institutions that are best suited to support these groups so that they can (1) determine their comparative advantage in producing and supplying different products for available markets, (2) gain the necessary technical and marketing skills to implement their decisions, and (3) continue diversifying into other high-value crops, products, or enterprises to both mitigate their risk and enable them to further enhance their incomes and livelihoods (Swanson 2008a). What can be clear is that changes have occurred through the different systems of innovation and agriculture. These changes have brought little change to the ways gender is incorporated. The Farming Systems perspective of the, 1980s encouraged countries and organizations to look beyond the idea of a household whose members had common interests, for an understanding of the intrahousehold gender relations regarding production responsibilities in agriculture. Here, it was assumed that men heads of households made most decisions or were in charge of most aspects of the production processes in which small-scale farm units were engaged. This view impeded the possibility in taking women farmers into account as both key actors and stakeholders. Beginning the 1995, It is now becoming known that women and

64 men have different roles within the household and that these roles differ in different societies and in different kinds of production units: small-scale/subsistence, medium-scale, and larger/commercial farm households. Most of the time, Women and men farmers are limited of resources (credit, inputs, technology, and collective cohesion) and they do not have the opportunity to innovate because of the risks and investment required. There are still restrictions for smaller-scale women farmers to meet the demand for high-value, labor-intensive products, proposals to privatize extension services will need to be reviewed if these farmers are to benefit from them. Because of these imperfections and gaps, the World Bank has developed the AIS framework (World Bank 2008; 2007) in an attempt to rethink the way agricultural systems are seen, from locally farming to the globe. According to it, diversity, inclusion, and participatory approaches are critical to building the quality of social capital needed for resilient and sustainable innovation systems. It focuses on strengthening the system from both the supply and demand sides of the broad spectrum of science and technology generation through the exchange activities of organizations, enterprises, and groups. The AIS framework takes into account the many actors along the value chain, as well as diverse organizational forms that can facilitate education, research, and extension systems as well as the practices, attitudes, and policies that frame agricultural production and trade (as it is demonstrated in the comparison among different approaches to investment in agricultural innovation with the gender dimension included within the framework) (Table 1). New insights bring us hopes that eventually the AIS will be different from other agricultural systems because it moves the discussion from seeds and breeds to one that centers on actors and stakeholders together with the rules and mechanisms that govern the way the different actors interact (World Bank 2007b: 135). According to the Gender and Agriculture sourcebook (2009) there are some key issues that need to be considered when AIS are going to be looked from the gender perspective
1. 2. 3. Organizational arrangements that support womens involvement Participation in research and extension Increased access for women to education and training Labor-saving technologies for women

4. 4. Emerging Trends Affecting Gender Roles in Agricultural Innovation Several emerging trends are affecting the gender-responsiveness of agricultural innovations, including policies, social processes, learning and education, formal and informal organizations, monitoring and evaluating progress and information and communication technologies

65

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Agricultural policies that support womens involvement in innovation systems Informal organizations and womens access to information and services Social processes of communication and information exchange Practices that increase the commitment and empowerment of women Strategies that engage women in agricultural innovation Innovation platforms for learning, communication, and alliance building Investment in diverse forms of research and advisory services Recognition for organizations that pay attention to representation by women Monitoring progress of multi stakeholder involvement

5. The Challenge of Integrating Gender and Innovation in Agriculture The development field in agriculture embraces tension often characterized as a division between theory and practice. Development agricultural practitioners have long complained about the apparent irrelevance of theoretical and conceptual literatures to the everyday practice of development, while conceptual writers often complain about the apparent thick-headedness of the practitioners who seem destined to repeat the errors of the past (Carr, 2008). One important area in which this tension plays out is gender and development, Ferguson, 1994; Geisler, 1993; Jackson, 1993a, 1993b, 1998; Peters, 1995 argue that the common use of gender in the development literature not only fails to move development toward its liberating objectives, but also reinforces, the very systems of oppression that a focus on gender in development was meant to address. Though such critiques seem to cut to the heart of the development project, to judge by the substantial majority of work on gender and development that has been undertaken in the wake of these writings, these authors have had little impact on the overall use of gender in either development studies or development practice. What is interesting tough is that these often-theoretical critiques might provide a conceptual basis for practical development efforts that result in measurably improved project outcomes of agricultural innovation where different vulnerabilities can be identified by evaluating the challenges facing each mode of livelihoods, and by association the different social groups linked with these modes. Indeed, only through this process can we identify and employ gender categories in agricultural innovation planning in a meaningful way. This will allow for the identification and targeting of the needs of minority or underrepresented populations that might not be heard in even the most sensitive participatory development consultations. At the very least, this complex picture will provide a cross-check for such consultations, to ensure that participatory development efforts truly engage the diversity of needs in a given community or organization (Holloway, Nicholson, Delgado, Staal, & Ehui, 2000). Thought, AIS makes an attempt at analyzing gender inequality; it falls short of showing how agricultural policies can contribute to tackling the underlying causes of gender inequality, which need to be addressed in order to give women an equal chance of using agriculture as a pathway out of poverty. It does not either address the fact that gender inequality actually often underpins national economic growth, where this is based on attracting global investment in agribusiness, by offering work

66 to women workers desperate for employment at any price. This means there is no automatic synergy between gender equality and increased growth. It can be observed that mainstream economic thought critiques represented by feminist economists are absent as well as the wider views in development that embrace human rights and the emancipation of women views are not addressed under this framework (WDR, 2008). Gender practitioners hoped the presence of a clear message where gender inequality leads to inefficient and irrational allocation of agricultural resources on the part of state, community, and household; that it leads to distress migration; that it leads to insufficient investment in human capital, due to male control of income and expenditure, and less investment in generational reproduction; and that gender inequality leads to submissive female paid labour forces in large-scale agriculture and agro-industry, who accept wages and conditions which force households to reproduce themselves at unsustainable levels. It is assumed that these crucial gender issues, debates, and analyses have been left out of AIS because of its operating parameters. It is perhaps inevitable that AIS provides only a partial roadmap of gender issues in agriculture. It offers an economic analysis and advocates changing gender relations in the economic sphere to enable women to maximize their role in production. It does not suggest that the World Bank, inside its operational lending or policy and research divisions, does not have the capacity to address deeper-rooted structural and social inequalities. It recognizes that distortions in markets may currently benefit men at the expense of efficiency and equal benefits of growth for women, and suggests how economic policies might begin to address these distortions. It doesnt explicitly and overtly take account of feminist critiques of mainstream economics models for using women and gender ideologies to create growth at the expense of the rights of women and their dependants. However, it is a lending institution that depends on, and believes in, a certain economic ideology. In addition, the World Bank has produced a number of substantial publications on gender that focus, respectively, on economic growth, womens rights, resources, and voice (Morrison et al. 2007). It cannot be said that it is a gender-blind institution, but, in common with many other development organizations, effective linkages between those who work on gender and those who work on sectoral issues are not yet effectively realized (KIT, Royal Tropical Institute, 2004). On the other hand as the Gender and Agriculture Sourcebook (2009) reports that the fight to incorporate gender equality in the programs has slowly begun to provide positive results. Gender inequality has become to be understood as a factor of social relations that affect, and are affected by, political and economic change. Enormous and unpaid, contribution made by women to the economy, in terms of reproductive activities are recognized, together with ways in which unequal social and economic structures create gender-related poverty, and perpetuate and shape inequality; and the importance of understanding that women need access to productive assets and activities, to maximize growth potential, and for development to occur without compromising womens rights. Cultural and political constraints on

67 womens increased participation in production are noted, but little is mentioned on economic constraints (WDR, 2008). The hypothesis is that womens labour is elastic and that they can take up more responsibilities and their reproductive work has little or no economic value. However, AIS inform that gender inequality interacts with poverty and with agricultural productivity and growth. It identifies the changing roles and growing contributions of women in agriculture and rural livelihoods. Forms of agricultural work undertaken by women are varied; changes in opportunities in labour markets, and womens need for equal control of assets and resources, particularly land are stressed out. Indeed, Gender roles and division of labour in the context of emerging employment opportunities, and to some extent, changes in demography and household structure as a result of migration. Nowadays, there is better understanding of the gender specific barriers to engagement in productive activities (for instance, where unequal household bargaining power means women are less likely to be engaged in cultivating cash crops), as well as explanations as to why productivity and growth itself are hindered by gender inequality (such as unequal control of productive assets like land). Programs need to challenge gender inequality and invest in addressing the barriers that women face, thus, efficiency and productivity in the AIS will be increased, and thereby contribute towards growth and poverty reduction. There some key factors that still needs to be considered to successfully incorporate gender in the AIS and these are: access to assets; womens empowerment and participation; globalization and migration; wages, work, and labour market opportunities. Gender relations, like all social relations, are multi-stranded: they embody ideas, values and identities; they allocate labour between different tasks, activities and domains; they determine the distribution of resources; and they assign authority, agency and decision-making power. This means that gender inequalities are multi- dimensional and cannot be reduced simply to the question of material or ideological constraint. It also suggests that these relationships are not always internally cohesive. They may contain contradictions and imbalances, particularly when there have been changes in the wider socio-economic environment. Who participates in development (research) interventions, projects, programmes, and policies? How exactly? Who benefits from them? Who remains excluded or isolated? These are becoming crucial questions to be considered and integrated into intervention strategies if the aim is to support the more equitableand sustainableuse of natural resources and the derived benefits. Some policy makers, activists and researchers recognize the need to reflect on and integrate social and gender equity, particularly as it relates to participation, inclusion and exclusion, decision-making and power relations. Agarwal (2001: 1623) has forcefully drawn attention to processes of exclusion in agricultural development. Apparently set up to operate on principles of cooperation, groups are meant to involve and benefit all sections of the AIS actors. Yet effectively they can exclude significant sections, such as women. These 'participatory exclusions' (that is exclusions within seemingly participatory institutions), constitute more than a time-

68 lag effect. Rather, they stem from systemic factors and can, in turn, unfavorably affect both equity and institutional efficiency. How to Integrate Gender into Agricultural Innovation Systems successfully: Review the entire chain of actors and womens role in the actual production to value added steps as well as in decision-
making. Ensure that the full range of women and mens activities is reflected in the research agenda along the innovation system. Identify activities are particularly time and/or energy consuming for women. Through networking, identify suitable technologies available to reduce the time and/or energy needed for such tasks. In particular, review the suitability of technologies available in other developing countries. Identify socio-economic factors that may affect the adoption of proposed technologies (e.g. security of resource tenure (land, water, inputs and assets) of men and women; access to needed complementary inputs by gender, such as credit, seeds, fertilizer and membership in necessary trade groups). Increase the supply of information, technologies and facilities that women specifically need (market information, intermediate transport technologies, appropriate tools and equipment, etc).

The most important innovations are those that bring about a positive change in the way smallholders and other rural poor people invest in, produce and market their products; manage their assets; organize themselves; communicate and interact with their partners; and influence policies and institutions. As IFAD (2009) argues innovations promoted may take many forms (institutional, organizational, financial, technological, procedural, methodological, administrative and legal) and occur within many contexts (social, political, cultural). Innovations are also needed in the way that agencies (governments, non-governmental organizations, research and finance institutions, and private enterprises) support agricultural innovation by lifting barriers and creating new platforms for actors action. In most cases, innovations are the result of a process of interplay among actors within a specific institutional setting. Actors of AIS must express habits and practices that enable successful innovation (Raina, 2006). Based on these principles, quick technology fixes such as training programmes and technology transfers do not work in AIS. Contrary, consideration of the following aspects are required if successful diffusion of AIS is aimed. These broad principles provide an excellent framework to begin the study of diffusion of innovations in any context. First, the need to recognize that one has to work with several actors or players with differing skill levels, knowledge inputs, learning capacities and interests and these players are all part of the agricultural innovation system that is developed. Second, technological, social and institutional innovations go together. One cannot view them in separate compartments since each aspect is an integral part of a successful innovation system. Third, for a successful system, knowledge and learning must take place at different levels and on an ongoing basis. Open learning attitude, working through others at the local level when necessary and even playing by their rules if that will build trust. There must be room for learning by doing, making corrections and adjustments while the programme evolves. Fourth, there must be enabling policy, the right institutional environment

69 and governance to make the system work. The players of the innovation system must express habits and practices that enable successful innovation (Raina, 2006). 5.1. Institutions and governance issues Studies demonstrate that institutions14 that are not representative of the population, and that are not themselves gender sensitive, are unlikely to deliver socially responsive outcomes. In the case of AIS needs to incorporate organizational and institutional measures to promote diversity and equality among all actors system is required. Institutional settings play a central role in shaping the processes that are critical to innovation: interaction, learning and sharing knowledge (Hall, Mytelka, & Oyeyinka, Innovation systems: Implications for agricultural policy and practice, 2005). The key agents of the innovation process changed over time. Initially, it was admiration for the individual as `heroic entrepreneur; later, the process of innovation had become routinized in the form of the research and development, one of the key organizational innovations of the twentieth century (Freeman et al, 1982). Finally it has become less horizontal where all actors have the option to participate equally where a process in which some of the concepts of the network paradigm like institutions play a major role. (Morgan, 1997). In the case of AIS, it is not an exemption to include institutions, those that affect the process by which innovations are developed and deliveredthe laws, regulations, conventions, traditions, routines, and norms of society that determine how different agents interact with and learn from each other, and how they produce, disseminate, and utilize knowledge (Hartwich, Alexaki, & Baptista, 2007). These are the factors that determine the efficiency and stability of cooperation and competition, and whether agents in an innovation system are able to interact so as to generate, diffuse, and utilize knowledge. An institution may be no more explicit than a traditional tendency toward (or away from) informal entrepreneurial behavior in agrarian society, such as farmer exchanges of seed and other planting materials; or it may be more codified in the laws that govern how private, knowledge based firms are established, licensed, and taxed, and the extent to which such firms can appropriate the rents from innovation (Spielman D. J., 2005). 5.1.1. Institutions Institutional change involves transformation of the rules and norms that govern agricultural innovation and development (Rajeswari S, 2003). Institutions are not organizations, although they embrace them, but are best understood as a set of formal and informal rules, which are administered by organizations15 (North, 2005).
In the Innovation system literature institutions are defined as sets of common habits, routines, practices, rules or laws that regulate the relationships and interactions between individuals and groups (Hall A. S., 2000). 15 Institutions are formal and informal rules and their enforcement mechanisms that shape the behaviour of individuals and organizations in society. By contrast, organizations are entities composed of people who act collectively in pursuit of shared objectives. Organizations and individuals pursue their interests within an institutional structure defined by formal rules (constitutions, laws, regulations, contracts) and informal rules (ethics, trust, religious precepts, and other implicit codes of conduct). Organizations, in turn, have internal rules (i.e. institutions) to deal with personnel, budgets, procurement, and reporting procedures, which constrain the behaviour of their members (Burki and Perry, 1998: 11).
14

70 They determine who gets what, who does what, and who decides. The analytical issue of distinguishing between organizational change and institutional reform is critical for the effectiveness of policy and the innovation process. The former does not imply the latter; and where the latter is ignored, institutional constraints would block the innovation process. In some cases, institutions or norms that govern research organizations do not grant scientists the professional authority to debate and interact with relevant stakeholders to help policy formulation. Thus, reviews of public sector research that recommend mere organizational changes are not enough. There must be a substantive, independent professional assessment of the scientific quality of research (Vaidyanathan 2000a: 1739). Unfortunately this is impossible without a proactive innovation system that is willing to face its own institutional weaknesses as well as the changing technological and social contexts. However, one clear understanding that has emerged is that institutions change (in large part) as a result of the actions of organizations. Whenever an organization intervenes in the life of a community, it has the ongoing choice whether to challenge or support existing community gender-related norms. Actions are required to challenging the power of those who benefit from the status quo (Jtting, 2005). Most organizations have neither the inclination nor the capacity to challenge institutional norms because the still presence of social norms may prevent poor women, and even poor men from taking on certain roles required for innovation. This is why organizational change is so critical to the enterprise of achieving gender equality through development interventions. To promote organizational change that will enable the organization to challenge gender inequality, change agents must understand and link organizational change, institutional change and gender equality. Box 1 outlines how institutions can be usefully unpacked for gender- aware planning and for raising awareness about gender issues inside the AIS.
Unpacking institutions in the AIS

Rules (or how things get done): Institutional behaviour is governed by rules. These rules are distinct institutional patterns of behaviour in the official and unofficial, the explicit and implicit, norms, values, traditions, laws and customs which constrain or enable what is done, how, by whom and who will benefit from the Agricultural Innovation Systems. Activities what is done: In essence institutions are rule-governed sets of activities, organized around meeting specific needs or the pursuit of specific goals of the AIS. These activities can be productive, distributive or regulative and because of their rule-governed nature, they tend to generate routinized practices. Therefore, institutional practice is a key factor in reconstituting social inequality and must change if unequal gender relations are to be transformed. Resources what is used or produced: All institutions can mobilize resources human (labour, learning, knowledge, capacities and skills), material (agriculture products, inputs, assets, land, money) or intangible (information, political clout, goodwill, contacts, partnerships, networks, alliances). Institutional rules govern how these resources are allocated in the AIS. People who is in, who is out and who does what: Institutions are constituted by categories of people with the institutions rules and practices determining who is included and excluded, and the assignment of roles, tasks, responsibilities and resources. These institutional patterns express social inequalities. Power who determines priorities and makes the rules: Power is unequally distributed A throughout organizations reflected in unequal distribution of resources and responsibilities. good deal of effort has gone into changing organizations themselves, in order to enhance their ability to challenge and change gender-based rules in a variety of Official and unofficial rules legitimize this distribution, giving some institutional actors authority
to interpret institutional goals and needs, and to mobilize the loyalty, labour or compliance of others. So the outcomes of institutional practice reflect the interests of those with the power to make the rules as well as to change them. Adapted and modified from(Kabeer & Subrahmanian, 1996) and (Demetriades, 2009).

71 institutional arenas (Padmanabhan M. A., 2005) that are supposed to be gender- biased and in some ways constrain their functioning. The deep structures of organizations (collection of values, history, culture and practices) form the unquestioned, reasonable way of work in organizations and these must be understood and known in order to be uncovered (Rao, Stuart and Kelleher, 1999). The most important of these is exclusionary power, and how it is used to keep womens interests and perspectives out. Very few organizations have mechanisms or ways of balancing or restraining the power of those at the top. Very few enforce accountability mechanisms. Although most organizations pride themselves on participation, this is almost always the type that keeps the authority structure of people, ideas and decision-making intact. Power hides the fact that organizations are gendered at very deep levels. More specifically, women are prevented from challenging institutions by four interrelated factors: (1) Lack of political access: There are neither systems nor powerful actors who can bring womens perspectives and interests to the table; (2) Lack of appropriate accountability systems: Organizational resources are steered toward quantitative targets that are often only distantly related to institutional change for gender equality; (3) Cultural systems: The workfamily divide perpetuated by most organizations prevents women from being full participants in those organizations as women continue to bear the responsibility for child and elderly care; and (4) Cognitive structures: Work itself is seen mostly within existing, gender-biased norms and understandings. Although much has been accomplished by now in the name of gender equality, it is still true that in not region of the world women and men are equal in legal, social or economic rights (World Bank, 2001). It is because the bulk of development work toward gender inequality ignores the role of the institutions (formal and informal) that maintain women and mens unequal position. There is a growing consensus among feminists across the world that to make a significant impact on gender inequality, institutions must be changed (Padmanabhan, 2002). However, there is an opportunity to achieve that given the dynamics and structure of the AIS. This motion gives women a legitimate space to participate, and possibly a voice, however it does not guarantee their immediate influence in AIS. It anticipates the change of largely informal institutions that constrain womens participation (political) and influence in the decision-making of the AIS functioning (Szkely, 2008). The terms institution and organization are often used synonymously, for that reason, it is useful to distinguish the two (Hall, Bockett, Taylor, Sivamohan, & Clark, 2001). An analytical distinction between institutions and organizations is essential to determine the purpose and consistency of reforms. Bureaucracy led and prompt organizational changes, with little or no debate or participation of all actors including women, are inadequate to determine organizational changes before resolving deeply entrenched institutional problems in any system (Hall, Bockett, Taylor, Sivamohan, & Clark, 2001). The inadequacy of organizational changes needs to be considered when it becomes apparent despite successes in production and or productivity of agriculture. This inability of the organizations of agricultural policy, research and extension to achieve sustainable innovation and development that would benefit the rural poor is evident and widely discussed.

72 The rules that maintain womens position in societies may be stated or implicit. These rules would include values that maintain the gendered division of labor; land tenure; and restrictions on womens mobility. Perhaps the most fundamental is the devaluing of reproductive work. Certainly, changing institutions is not easy and our global understanding of it is far from sophisticated. Innovation systems in agriculture can play a significant role in supporting women to challenge unequal gender relations. Most of the initiatives that involve development work have failed to do so because they pay insufficient attention to the importance of social institutions in perpetuating inequality (Horton & Mackay, 2003). Inequality can also be present among women. Female farmers are not a homogenous group like between male farmers, there also exist many differences between women in terms of access to resources and their say in decision making. Thus, a first distinction is to be made between women heading a household (female-headed households) and married women (members of male headed households). Each of these groups is likely to have their own interests and priorities and the way they are best involved in trials can be different as well (Heemskerk, 2004). Agricultural development depends on innovation, but creating the conditions that allow smallholder farmers to innovate and to use new technologies and practices is one of the major challenges that agricultural policy-makers face. Investing in agricultural research is important to reach this goal, but it is not sufficient. Strengthening agricultural innovation systems is also thus less about specific operational and policy recommendations. Although, there are principles and generic issues; rather, it is about ensuring that conditions that nurture diverse approaches to innovation exist, and that competitors join forces with each other to constantly adapt institutional and policy framework conditions for innovation (Hall A. , 2007). The concept of the Agricultural Innovation System draws attention to wide range of actors and organizations from the public, private and civil society sectors that are involved in bringing new agricultural products, processes and forms of organization into economic use. The AIS is more inclusive than the rather narrow notion of a research system. It is a system of public sector organizations and actors engaged in generating knowledge and technologies. The innovation system encompasses all components of the system of public, private, voluntary or other organizations and actors whose interactions and networking processes produce, diffuse and use economically useful knowledge. The AIS produces technological and institutional innovations. In AIS both technological and institutional innovations are generated, modified, sustained and utilized (Berdegu, 2005). This concept also acknowledges the role of the institutional and policy environment that affects agricultural innovation. The most valuable contribution of the innovation systems framework lies in its ability to widen otherwise narrow or conventional analytical perspectives on developing-country agricultural research and innovation. The framework is a more comprehensive analytical perspective because it emphasizes on the study of interactions and processes among diverse

73 agents and institutions involved in the innovation process. However, there are concerns that the full value of the framework has been applied in order to understand how innovation occurs and what are the designing mechanisms that strengthen agricultural innovation systems in developing countries. The gender dimension of the institutions that regulate innovation processes is very important. Unless gender is addressed explicitly, most innovation processes will not be gender neutral and often will limit opportunities for women to participate and benefit (Crowden, 2003). The opportunities to participate in inter-agent communication, which lay at the heart of innovation and innovation networks, are also gendered, as they entail perceptions of social risk in male-dominated environments (Berdegu, 2005). Some of the emerging literature on agricultural innovation systems remains tied to conventional interest in the structure and reform of brick-and-mortar public sector institutions rather than the rules of the games that describe the wider characteristics of an innovation system (Chema; Gilbert; Roseboom, 2003). Another aspect is that many agricultural research initiatives seem to be committed to the conventional priority of strengthening national, public sector partners without fully recognizing the complexity of the processes and systems within which these partners operate (FARA, 2004, and Roseboom, 2004). A major recent step forward has been the recognition that innovation is not something alien to farmers and those farmers do have their own innovation system based on farmers knowledge and connectedness within and between communities. Formal innovation systems with public/private research and extension providers are increasingly tapping into the farmers own innovation systems. Institutional and organizational innovation is needed to better integrate both formal and farmer innovation systems into one single system (Reij and Waters-Bayer, 2001; Chema; et al, 2003). In order to establish or enhance a working relation between service providers for innovation development (such as research and extension) and farmers, both sides have to see incentives to be interested. In sum, the early applications set to developing-country agriculture suggest a far narrower and, less informative approach that revolves around the trials and tribulations of a single, typically public sector, agent. This overlooks the analytical strength of the innovation systems framework and its unique approach to understanding complex and diverse agents, institutions, and interactions. It has to be admitted that agricultural research and innovation in many developing countries are focused on attaining food security and alleviating poverty by enhancing crop yields for farmers and improving food availability for consumers with limited market access or purchasing power. This strategy has traditionally required that research outputs be generated as nonexcludable, nonrival (public) goods, requiring, in turn, public sector investment in research and innovation. This is most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 97 percent of agricultural research is undertaken by the public sector (Beintema and Stads, 2004). But it is no less relevant in Asia and Latin America. However, these narrow approaches overlook the importance of understanding the wider system and process of social and technological change in agriculture, the institutional factors that underlie these

74 processes, and the potential impacts on research and innovation. More importantly, these narrow approaches do little to change the nature of how innovation occurs in developing-country agriculture, leaving many puzzles unanswered. Here, the importance of providing policy instruments that enable introspection (self examination), capacity development and institutional learning is crucial for agricultural research and development in developing countries where institutional reform is long overdue. In many cases, policy reluctance to reform the institutions of agricultural innovation will mean that not only the bureaucratic and procedural impediments that prevent effective agricultural innovation and development will persist, but also inequalities and exclusion of women and men from all fronts involved in the AIS, will prevent opportunities for sustainable development. Getting the institutions right is one of the arguments that this stream of thinking has used as a prerequisite for development. What is striking however is that relatively little attention is given to how institutional changes might be brought about (Lfler et al., 2007). Policies also influence the way people behave. An environment that supports or encourages innovation is not the outcome of a single policy but relies on a set of policies that work together to shape innovative behaviour. Furthermore, habits and practices interact with polices, so when designing effective policies, the habits and practices of the people affected need to be taken into account (Mytelka, 2000). For example, the introduction of a more participatory approach to research is often ineffective unless scientists change their habits and working practices. A good example of that change is the introduction of the Participatory market Chain approach in Peru by promoting pro-poor innovation for linking resource-poor farmers to market (Devaux, 2007). The Participatory Market Chain Approachs objective is to bring diverse partners together for stimulating market driven innovation through stakeholder platforms to promote interaction and potential collaborative actions around market opportunities by a framework of innovation systems. The Stakeholder platform promotes interaction and collaboration of diverse range of actors by providing space for interaction to reduce conflicts, build trust and lead to join action; facilitating linkages between farmers and other public and private actors and; supporting small farmers to take advantage of market opportunities (Thiele, 2006). The approach is innovative and transformational because it introduces and endorses new concepts; promotes and facilitates partnership and alliances with diverse actors and finally; supports experimentation with new forms of organizations (CIP, 2008). On the other hand, more profound study of the dynamics of innovation is needed. This includes the study of non-state actors in relation to, separate from, or even in spite of public sector research organizations. Several studies (Hall et al., 2002, 2004) attempt to do this, representing an important directional indicator for the literature. But more study is required on heterogeneity among non-state actors, changes in the

75 institutional contexts in which heterogeneous actors operate, and alternative forms of interaction among various actors. (Rajalahti, Janssen, & Pehu, 2008). 5.1.2. Governance Governance in innovation systems is less about executing research and administering extension services, and has more to do with guiding diverse actors involved in complex innovation processes through the rules and incentives that foster the creation, application, and diffusion of knowledge and technologies. The role the government plays in fostering agricultural innovation depends on institutional regulations; the strength, weaknesses, and motivation of the actors who contribute to innovation; and the style of governance (Hartwich, Frank and Jansen, Heinz-Gerhard, 2006). Therefore, the governance of an innovation system can be understood as the structures and procedures policymakers set forth to foster innovation and provide incentives to innovating agents and the interaction among them (Hartwich, Frank; Alexaki, Anastasia and Baptista, Ren, 2007). However, the governance of innovation systems from a gender perspective is still an unexplored territory in developing country and development policy. Women are often the last to benefit from economic growth and development - in some cases women have even been negatively affected. Gender bias and gender blindness persists. Political reform processes demonstrate only limited efficiency and effectiveness if the needs and potential of important actors (stakeholders) in the society and economy are excluded or only marginally considered. In many countries, awareness of gender issues and willingness to address them has grown; in most, women's or gender policies have been formulated. Promotion of gender equality is an integral part of supporting good governance. It also contributes to the realization of internationally agreed development objectives, action programs and accords. There is a need to concentrate efforts in the orientation of public services, their policies and programs towards gender-specific needs of the population; equitable participation of women and men, be it in creating political, economic, legal and social framework conditions, and thus, ultimately, overcoming existing discrimination against women in the public as well as in the private sphere. Gender equality is an indicator for good governance. Accounting for the different needs of women and men in decision- making processes is conducive to social development and pro-poor-based growth. The keys to gender equality are equal access to and control over resources and power. Strengthening the social status of women is one of the decisive challenges of our time worldwide, calling for pro-active policymaking and goal-oriented action. Governance16 by its own means is a slippery term even though it is an oft-used term in international development; there are numerous interpretations of what the
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) defines governance as ... the exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a countrys affairs at all levels. It comprises mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their differences (UNDP 1997). The World Bank on the other hand, is more concerned with the economic part of governance and includes issues involved with human and civil rights. It refers to governance as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised for the common good. This includes the process by which those in authority are selected,
16

76 term actually describes. It refers to the ways in which institutions function. It is how power and resources are distributed and managed within institutional structures. The term encompasses all the traditions, institutions and processes that determine how power is exercised, citizens are given a voice, and decisions are made on issues of public concern (Institute of Governance, 2002). This includes the process by which those in authority are selected, monitored and replaced, the capacity of the government to effectively manage its resources and implement sound policies, and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. Although such definitions appear neutral, they are implicitly based on normative assumptions, such as that those in authority should be monitored (Goetz, et al., 2009). Definitions of good governance17 explicitly have a normative content, identifying what the organization or author proposing the definition considers desirable. Citizen participation, accountability, transparency, rule of law and stability are common elements in many definitions of good governance. Some definitions of good governance go beyond these components and include the adoption of specific policies, such as policies promoting private-sector led growth, as elements of good governance (Goetz, et al., 2009). A distinction has to be made between (1) identifying governance elements that are instrumental to reach other goals, such as poverty reduction, and (2) defining governance elements that constitute values in their own right (Resnik & Birner, 2006). In that sense, notions of governance are similar to those of AIS that include not merely institutions of national government but those of local and global governance (Ballabah, 2007). These new definitions are more broad based and consider governance as a process that encompasses state- society interactions and partnership. The definition of governance includes a range of organizations, public-private, and cooperation and complex relationships between and among them. Thus, there are several alternative conceptualizations of governance that recognize the plurality of actors involved. It is another commonality that governance shares with AIS. The concept of the Agricultural Innovation System draws attention to wide range of actors and organizations from the public, private and civil society sectors that are involved in bringing new agricultural products, processes and forms of organization into economic use. Governance emphasizes participation, decentralization, accountability and responsiveness, even broader concerns such as social equality and justice. Equality needed to include women and men in similar conditions. It is not including women inside of some of the chains of the AIS, but it is also incorporating women as part of
monitored and replaced, the capacity of the government to effectively manage its resources and implement sound policies, and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. (http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/about.html#approach). 17 Good governance is recognized as essential to poverty reduction efforts and respect for human rights, as well as conflict prevention, growth, and environmental protection. Good governance implies democratic governance, meaning an agenda for participation, human rights, and social justice. Women ought to benefit as much as men from governance reforms that focus on reducing corruption and increasing opportunities to participate in public decision-making. But there is no such thing as gender-neutral governance reform. If governance reforms do not address the social relations that undermine womens capacity to participate in public decisions, they run the risk of reproducing gender biases and patterns of exclusion in the management of public affairs.

77 the whole system equally to other actors. Another aspect that needs to be considered is that until now, most of the programs have included women as a group (self-groups). Women need to be included in mixed groups where they can share experiences with males. This new emphasis in governance has come from the understanding of the development process itself which encompasses expansion of real freedom that actors enjoy to pursue the objectives they have reason to value and, in that sense, the expansion of capacities is seen as the central feature of the process of development (Dreze & Sen, 2002). Improving or reforming governance is not only about building and strengthening public and private institutions, the supply side. It is also about building citizen engagement and voice, the demand side (World Bank, 2006) as it shows in figure 1.
Figure 1: Demand- and Supply-Side Strategies to Improve Governance with the Inclusion of Gender

Good fit Measures to improve voice and accountability from a gender perspective: Decentralization, Participatory planning, Budgeting, affirmative action, right to information Contextual factors: * Political * Economic * Socio- cultural Good coordination

Nature of the problems affecting the effective engagement of women and men (roles, relations, power dynamics, hierarchies, incentives) Demand side: Ability of men and women to demand good governance and hold representatives (elected and nonelected) accountable

Measures to improve public sector capacity: Civil service reform, public expenditure reform, outsourcing, public-private partnerships Good fit

Supply-side: Improving the capacity of politicians and administration to be effective and responsive to gender-specific needs

Source: Modified from the Gender and Agriculture Sourcebook, 2009

Nature of the problems affecting performance of service providers (such as incentives, bureaucratic culture, political capture)

Gendered good governance in the agricultural sector: * Quality of policies and regulations to promote inclusion of gender analysis in all programs * Efficiency and equity in providing services and infrastructure * Control of corruption and abuse to disadvantaged women and men * Access to justice and enforcement of rights for women and men, including land rights and the right to food

Reforms that aim at promoting good governance have become an important policy area (World Bank 2007a). Programs, projects, and investments that support governance reforms are relevant for agricultural livelihoods and for instance for the AIS in two respects: First, agriculture can benefit from overall reforms that aim at improving governance, such as decentralization, promotion of community-driven development, public sector management reforms, legal reforms, and anticorruption measures. Second, agricultural livelihoods can be promoted by governance reforms

78 specific to the agricultural sector, such as strategies to improve agricultural policy making and reforms of agricultural service provision. Approaches can be differentiated to improve governance that require institutional and legal changes, and approaches that can be pursued within an existing institutional and legal framework (FAO; and, IFAD; World Bank, The, 2009). Although all four types of reforms create significant opportunities for improving agricultural livelihoods for actors who are participating in the AIS or those who have the possibilities to be integrated in the AIS by making agricultural policies and programs more effective. However, it cannot be assured that any of these governance reforms will also promote gender equity in the AI (FAO; and, IFAD; World Bank, The, 2009) S. These reforms have to be implemented without a gender blind way; otherwise, reforms can even increase gender inequalities. Therefore, specific efforts are needed to make governance reforms gender sensitive and to address the specific challenges of gender inequality in the agricultural sector. One can consider governance reforms that are relevant for agriculture to be gender sensitive if: they are (1) sensitive to gender differentials, for instance, by making sure that women in the agricultural sector do not lose out in the reform process; (2) gender specific, that is, by addressing specific needs that differ between men and women engaged in agriculture; (3) empowering to women, for instance, by making provisions for affirmative action and creating more opportunities for rural womens participation in political processes; or (4) transformative, for instance, by attempting to change prevalent attitudes and social norms that lead to discrimination against women in the AIS (FAO; and, IFAD; World Bank, The, 2009). Governance is founded on citizens ability to claim entitlements in three broad areas: the right to participate in decision-making; the inclusion of peoples needs and interests in policy; and the allocation of resources (Baden 2000). The ability to claim and exercise these entitlements is based on gender roles and relations of unequal power. Gendered exclusion is linked to the public/private divide that identifies mens role as being in the public world of politics and paid employment, and womens in caring and child-rearing in the home (Meer and Sever 2004: 5). Women are generally not considered to be political actors and their gendered interests (for example health needs, raising of children and domestic violence) are not interpreted as a community or nations common good (good for the whole community) (Meer and Sever, 2003). This has the effect of de-politicizing womens interests and failing to fully acknowledge the power issues involved in redressing inequalities between women and men (Baden, 2000). The rights, responsibilities, and roles of men and women in agriculture vary, and are often distinct. Women engage in production, processing, and marketing tasks, both on their own account and on behalf of their families. As noted, however, womens access to productive assets, information, and services is significantly constrained. Overall productivity suffers as a result. Consideration of women is important in planning a successful innovation of the agricultural sector. Inclusion of women improves their ability to benefit from a focus on agricultural development. Benefits can occur by promoting womens abilities to secure access to agricultural assets,

79 obtain credit to purchase improved agricultural inputs and tools, earn fair wages, and/or receive fair prices for products (Jtting, Morrisson, Dayton-Johnson, & Drechsler, 2006). In the AIS, challenges cannot be addressed by the state alone; other non-state agents, including farmers organizations, farmers groups that include women and the private sector, are key stakeholders for governance. The combined impact of social, political, economic, and technological transformations has been far-reaching, affecting funding for agricultural programming as well as the economic context in which international financial institutions and agricultural producers operate. Good governance is an essential element of the enabling environment for AIS. Governance at all levels is critical to ensuring the stable and secure environment in which market systems can operate. Sound governance also promotes investment and provides appropriate support to overcome market weaknesses. Expanded and diverse participation of all citizens in decision making enhances the probability of good governance. Such participation not only empowers men and women to hold government accountable but encourages them to be responsible for their communities and begin solving their own problems. While some countries are making excellent progress toward good governance, others face obstacles. Critical analyses of impediments to progress will help national governments identify their costs and develop the political commitment to support change. These analyses will also provide community and private sector groups with a stronger voice in lobbying for change. 5.2. From knowledge transfer to interactive learning In contrast to traditional modes of knowledge production and learning that tended to follow a linear approach, in which researchers and experts produce new knowledge or have the knowledge and then transfer it (mode 1 of knowledge production ) (Gibbons; et al, 1994). Innovation requires knowledge from multiple sources, including from users of that knowledge. It involves different sources of knowledge interacting with each other in order to share and combine ideas (The World Bank, 2008). These interactions and processes are usually very specific to a particular context; and each context has its own routines and traditions that reflect historical origins shaped by culture, politics, policies and power. Innovation is an interactive process through which knowledge acquisition and learning take place. This process often requires quite extensive linkages with different knowledge sources (Rajalahti, Janssen, & Pehu, 2008). These sources may be scientific and technical, but equally they can be a source of other forms of knowledge, both tacit and codified. Patterns of interaction between different knowledge sources form a central component of an organization or sectors capacity to innovate. Here, women and men become agent players, because they have the chance to carry out their own analyses, make their own decisions, and take their own actions. Every person has agency, every person analyses, decides, and acts. Agency is a continuum, from less to more. At this level, women and men are involved in a journey through which they

80 increase their agency. Thus, individually women and men build relationships, joint efforts, coalitions, and mutual support, in order to claim and expand agency, alter inequitable structures, and so realize rights and livelihood security in the agricultural innovation system. The relationships that sustain the acquisition of knowledge and permit interactive learning are critical and can take many forms. They can be partnerships, for example, in which two or more organizations pool knowledge and resources and jointly develop a product, or they can be commercial transactions, in which an organization purchases technologies (in which knowledge is embedded) or knowledge services from another organization, in which case the relationship is defined by a contract or license. Linkages may also take the form of networks, which provide an organization with market and other early-warning intelligence on changing consumer preferences or technology. Networks also embody the know who of knowledge sources, which can be tapped as the need arises. These linkages and the relationships that govern them concern knowledge flows. They must not be confused with the linkages and relationships that govern the movement of commodities through value chains, although many of the same actors may be involved. Lundvall (1992) places learning and the role of institutions as the critical components of innovation systems. Features of successful innovation systems identified by social scientists are, continuous evolutionary cycles of learning and innovation, combinations of technical and institutional innovations, interaction of diverse research and non-research actors, shifting roles for information producers, information users and a need based exchange of knowledge, an institutional context that supports interactions and knowledge flows between actors. (Hall; et al, 2001). Learning processes are vital in engendering a sense of ownership, particularly in terms of collective learning and interaction between stakeholder groups and researchers. Researchers, development practitioners and community members may have different perspectives on learning. The effectiveness of meetings and interaction depends on sharing knowledge around agreed common interests. Where there are differences in the agenda of communities and researchers that are not made explicit, there is a risk of an inefficient use of research time, of misunderstanding or even conflict. A sense of ownership of the research agenda is one of the early building blocks on which communities can increase their sense of empowerment in managing their resources and their livelihoods. Even though, the definition of learning has given rise to debate among scholars from various disciplines, in particular, as regards at which level learning takes place and should be analyzed: the individual, group, or wider social level. A consensus exists that learning is the key driver in constructing new knowledge, competence, and skills while altering ways of thinking, ways of seeing, belief systems, and routines. It is also widely accepted that all knowledge is contextual as it is created by interaction with the environment and is embedded in the practices and epistemologies of the actors (Latour 1987; Law 1994); learning is also contextual with regard to actors actively and deliberatively engaging in a learning process to

81 develop knowledge pertinent to their specific circumstances (Jasper and Stuiver 2005). A joint learning process not only empowers and challenges both researchers and women and men farmers to extend their knowledge and action into new areas (Hagmann et al, 1999), but also, promotes interactive learning that occurs when organizations engage in generation, diffusion, adaptation and use of new knowledge leading to innovation (new products and processes) (A.J, Sivamohan, Clark, Taylor, & Bockett, 2001). This is particularly important for the understanding of complex social processes, for highly specialized technical knowledge not available within the farming community and for technology which requires changes in behavior and management practices, rather than the adoption of discrete technologies. Knowledge exchanged with farmers and women is not merely technical knowledge. Technology is socially embedded; its meaning and significance is interpreted and integrated within existing belief and knowledge systems. That is the reason why traditional linear approaches fail to respond to complex challenges and rapidly contexts. Rolings (2002) states that it is necessary to move out from individual multiple cognitions to interrelated distributed cognition and to an understanding of group processes to capture the essence of social learning when divergent interests, norms, values and constructions of reality meet in an environment that is conducive to learning (Wals, 2007). It is the collective action and reflection that occurs among different individuals and groups as they work together to improve the management of human and environmental interrelations. The agricultural innovation system brings a new and exciting possibility to overcome traditional approaches for the generation of knowledge and thus, foster innovation processes. The promotion of the called mode 2 type of knowledge is propitious to the AIS framework, it promotes the interaction of multiple actors with multilayered sources of knowledge to cope with the complexity of fostering continuous technological, social and institutional innovations to respond to the changing contexts and demands. In other words, it is an opportunity for learning alliances or social learning. Learning alliances among all components of the AIS transform functions, structures and competence in organizations, strengthen the capacities of people and the abilities of the institutions to work together to promote agricultural innovation (Sanginga, Waters-Bayer, Kaaria, Njuki, & Wettasinha, 2009). Relevant stakeholders including women have the prospect of being involved in the innovation system and they need to collaborate since, no one of them holds the necessary information, Secondly, the opportunity to work into a long term working relationship, supports the enhancement of their innovative capacity because of the collaboration and coordination of their actions inside the organization. Thirdly, the innovative process is a learning process. Women and men are forced and required to develop new knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviors to deal with differences

82 constructively, to adapt to change and to cope with uncertainty (Sanginga, Waters- Bayer, Kaaria, Njuki, & Wettasinha, 2009). Social learning attempts to provide opportunities for sharing experience and knowledge through active social networks and understand and act on the systemic nature of power relations (systemic level); recognize and emphasize collective action (collective level) and the most important, understand and emphasize individual self (autonomy, awareness, human agency (Hambly-Odame, Helen and Sarapura, Silvia, 2009),which are the key points to make progress in the inclusion of gender in the innovative system. Learning is defined as the process by which people and organizations create knowledge and acquire capacities. It is a complex process based on repetition, experimentation, and selection, which enable improved and faster performance of tasks and the identification of new opportunities (Dodgson, 1993). Learning processes have a gradual, cumulative, systemic, and idiosyncratic character. Knowledge is the fruit of the learning process, and the application of knowledge is a feedback to the process. Learning has been recognized as an essential component of human capital, but it is a special form of capital, because it increases with use and depreciates if it is not applied (OECD 1996). Based on this, learning takes place basically at three levels: individual, organizational, and network. Simon (1996) points out that all learning begins at the individual levelthus an organization learns in two ways: (1) through the learning of its members; or (2) through incorporating new members who have knowledge that the organization does not possess. Thus the definition of learning, and therefore of knowledge, is in the first instance an individual affair. But this classification is insufficient, as it does not account for knowledge developed jointly by several individuals. Individual learning is also a social phenomenon: what an individual learns largely depends on what is known by other members of the organization and what the organization allows in terms of experimentation (Von Krogh; Ichijo; and Nonaka, 2000; Bailey and Ford, 2003). In general, organizations do not allow for innovations, because they weaken routines that have yielded positive results in the past and are still considered useful (Bailey and Ford, 2003; Davila; Epstein; and Shelton, 2006). Collective knowledge depends on routines and conventions developed (often unconsciously) and accepted by members of the organization. In turn, through interactions, individuals define new operational routines; that is, routines are an expression of collective learning (Dosi; Nelson; and Winter, 2000). Therefore, although organizational learning occurs through individuals, it is not the sum of the individual learning of the organizations members (Dodgson, 1993). Organizational capabilities are a combination of elements sometimes explicit and articulated and sometimes tacit and subconscious (Dosi; Nelson; and Winter, 2000). For this reason, two important components of organizational learning are (1) being able to share knowledge with different areas of the organization and with new members of the development team and (2) making tacit knowledge explicit so as to be able to reflect on it and transmit it across time, especially after the owners of the tacit knowledge

83 leave the organization. Collective learning occurs not only through individuals imitation, like the masterapprentice relationship, but also as a result of the combination of individual efforts to understand complex problems. Learning requires developing shared codes of communication and search procedures. In organizations, routines are the manifestation of these codes and procedures (Teece; Pisano and Shuen; 1997). Organizations often are not aware of everything they know, making the construction of an institutional memory a key element of organizational learning. Knowledge is complex, diverse, and volatile. In addition, its availability has grown exponentially in recent decades. For these reasons, all stakeholders inside the AIS increasingly need to cooperate and share information and innovative capacities; that is, they need to integrate into networks. Innovation is increasingly the result of cooperation. Networks allow interchange of knowledge, abilities, and resources among different actors and institutions that make up systems at the local, regional, national, and international levels (Powell and Grodal 2005; Davila, Epstein, and Shelton 2006). Lundvall (1992) highlights the interactive character of learning, which depends on the formation of networks made up of different actors from the innovation system, including companies, research centers, farmers, suppliers, and users. The effectiveness of these networks depends on flows of knowledge, the mechanisms used by agents and institutions to learn collectively, and the acquisition of capacities through interaction. Strengthening the mechanisms by which learning and distribution of knowledge occur and encouraging the formation of networks have become key issues for policymaking and decision makers. A strong learning strategy needs to include various dimensions. First, it should simultaneously include both operational and strategic components. Second, it should define the goals of the learning, that is, what the organization needs to learn, including technological and organizational elements. Third, it should identify sources of learning and knowledge (internal, external, domestic, or foreign). Fourth, it should specify who learns (individuals, leaders, the organization, or networks). Fifth, it should identify the localization of the knowledge (that is, in which areas of the organization the knowledge will be produced). Sixth, it should identify the learning mechanism, in other words, the means or activities through which the actors learn (Vera-Cruz 2004). Learning can occur through a number of activities, including production, research and development, reverse engineering, analysis of competitors innovation portfolios (including the product basket and research and development projects), visits to other firms, team work, monitoring internal work, strategic alliances (with other firms and/or research institutions), and licensing. 5.3. Power and innovation implications for gender relations in households,
communities and meso levels

84 At different stages of the agricultural innovation systems, women and men are expected to be involved as producers and entrepreneurs, in production, processing and in marketing. Those areas where women are involved are often less visible and may be overlooked in both analysis and development. Large parts of the AIS that are essential to upgrading, are often ignored, particularly home working, small-farming and temporary work. These are generally very important in explaining how the AIS operate and indicate critical links at which upgrading or change should happen in order to bring about development of the system as a whole. Gender inequalities affect where power is located, how power is exercised and where and how change can occur in order to translate chain upgrading in the AIS. Gender inequalities are often important in explaining why different parts of the AIS chain are blockages to growth. Gender analysis is needed to explain why particular chains are dominated by men or women, in what circumstances women have been able to become successful at creating employment in the field and enterprises, and how women can be supported to make a more effective economic contribution. Besides, gender inequalities also affect men's behavior in the field, enterprises and markets as well as the household. As gender relations or power relations in general are socially, culturally and historically constructed and re-constructed (Argawal, 1994 and 1997). So, the arrangement of gender relations is not static but it is a changing process and situated in particular context (household, community and systemic). This means that gender relations are continuously reorganized in order to be relevant to production process which is influenced by both internal factors (such as lifecycle of a household, desire of producer) and external factors (such as changes in state policies, in technical renovation, in input and output markets, and so on). Women are social actors in any society, therefore, according to Long (1992) they are not simply seen as disembodied social categories (based on class or some other classificatory criteria) or passive recipients of intervention, but active participants who process information and strategize in their dealing with local actors as well as outside institutions (Maertens, Mia and Swinnen, F.M, 2009) The different patterns of social organization that emerge result from the interactions, negotiations and social struggles that take place between different kinds of actor (Long, 1992:21) Analysis of power relations has to begin by understanding intra-household dynamics from a gender perspective. Considerations must be given to the complex range of factors that might determine bargaining power; the role social norms and perceptions play in the bargaining process; the effect of gender differences in the exercise of self-interest might have on bargaining power. These factors can impinge crucially on the accuracy of theoretical formulations, empirical predictions, and policy interventions, and must therefore be given cognizance in framing hypotheses,

85 data gathering, and analyses (Argawal, 1997). Policies may go twisted if intra- household dynamics of power are assumed (as they often are) to exist in isolation, without examining the extra-household socioeconomic and legal institutions within which households are embedded, and how these institutions might themselves be subject to change (Aragwal, 1997). Beginning from the smallest social unit (household), women negotiate for their own power. The reason is the fact that the nature of intra-household interaction could be described as enclosing elements of both cooperation and conflict. Household members can cooperate as cooperative arrangements make each of them better-off than non-cooperation. However, there are also conflicts existing among them in terms of interest distribution and exercising power. In addition, cooperative-conflict relations can be seen in other arenas such as community, local labor market and the state. As pointed out by Ong (1987), Agarwal (1994), Mills (2001), and others in the family women negotiate with male authority and traditional ideology of altruism and dutifulness for their economic independence with the hope that it can more or less empower them. At community level, women negotiate with norms, customs and constraints. Women negotiate not just because they are women, but also because they are producers and workers; in other words, women have to negotiate for their livelihood diversification. Through negotiation process, they get more advantages in gender relations at different levels. However, in the macro level, gender relations are not much changed. In most of the developing world, women remain a crucial workforce in agriculture either as farmers or as wage laborers. A remarkable change is the fact that rural women work not only on their own farms, but also on other farms (small, medium and large farms). In addition, women are progressively becoming involved in off-farm sectors where they occupy the lower position with poorer wage. 6. Final Synthesis The necessity of incorporating women and men in the agricultural innovation and making it accessible to farmers in developing countries, where the majority of whom are women, enables them to respond to the demands of food assistance programs may turn the threat of high food prices into an opportunity for producing surplus food and raising the family income. Secondly, rural women will have the opportunity of improving and enhancing own capacities and those of the household. Innovative capacities and higher incomes are likely to facilitate the access to education and health services with long term developmental benefits for these communities. Both men and womens productive capacity and their capacity to participate are shaped by their gender roles. Gender relations impact agricultural outcomes and affect economic efficiency. There is evidence that gender equality is linked to increased efficiency and increased prospects for rural growth and the development of the rural economy (Holmes; et al, 2007). It follows that gender

86 ought not to be considered as a purely social issue or an add-on category to decision-making but rather, as an integral part of policy-making and implementation, thus deserving explicit analytical attention. The AIS approach reaches its stated potential to benefit women and men if it develops mechanisms to foster their organization into groups based on common interests and resources so that not only they can consider the economic feasibility of producing and marketing (IFAD, 2007), but also actors and organizations incorporate equality of participation and representation by showing how these interact. By understanding the importance of gender dynamics within the AIS; it is evident that appropriate gender strategies have to be included. In the study of innovative agriculture, the problem is dual, involving a direct neglect of women, and a tendency to utilize abstract terms so that the markets are treated as ungendered, with the assumption that all participants are male. However, these are embedded in the social relations that are culturally constructed. The gender division of labour, power dynamics and roles arise out of particular set of socially-determined gender relations which determines who buys and produces, processes and sells what, where, when and how. These aspects are highlighted at each node of the AIS starting from innovative choices, biodiversity conservation, crops production, processing and marketing, availability of resources and capacity innovation. The benefit of studying women together with men in the system helps on the identification of womens risks and achievements in the innovation production, income generation, resources accessibility, environmental (biodiversity) management and commercial innovations. Women farmers are frequently underestimated and overlooked in development strategies. However, women play a vital role as agricultural producers and as agents of food and nutritional security. Yet relative to men, they have less access to productive assets such as land and services such as finance and extension. A variety of constraints encroach upon their ability to participate in collective action as members of agricultural cooperative or water user associations. In both centralized and decentralized governance systems, women tend to lack political voice. The participation of women at each level of the agricultural innovative system needs to be satisfactory and inclusive to produce the greatest impact on the reduction of hunger and poverty by increasing opportunities for women in income-generating activities, learning, knowledge-sharing, decision-making, governance, participation, and the most important networking. Another aspect that is important to notice is that very little is known about who in the AIS needs what type of information and knowledge in order to make well-reasoned decisions, to learn and innovate constantly and finally to upgrade to meet shifting market conditions (Vermeulen and Ras, 2006). Agriculture is vital to the livelihoods of the rural poor and in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Agriculture is the engine of growth and is necessary for reducing poverty and food insecurity (IFAD 2001; World Bank 2007a).

87 Understanding the dynamic processes of change in the innovative system is crucial to better position the agricultural sector for faster growth and sustained development, which is vital for food and livelihoods security for millions of men and women worldwide. The rapid changes occurring in the agriculture sector present opportunities and challenges for the sectors central role in poverty reduction and food security. Markets and the demand for agricultural commodities are changing rapidly, especially for higher-value products. These changes may create opportunities for greater market participation for both women and men; however, for women in particular, equal access to these markets is still limited. Advances in agricultural knowledge and technology that accompany the changes are creating an assortment of new choices for small scale producers, altering what is produced, where it is produced, and how it is produced. Outside factors such as environmental change, globalization, and climate change are also altering agricultural potentiality all over the world. In particular, climate change is now affecting water availability and weather conditions and consequently is impacting agricultural production (Bode et al, 2008). Consequently, There is an obligation to examine the differences in women's and men's lives, including those which lead to social and economic inequity for women, and applies this understanding to policy development and service delivery, concerned with the underlying causes of inequities and aims to achieve positive change for women. The term 'gender' refers to the social construction of female and male identity. It can be defined as 'more than biological differences between men and women. This includes the ways in which those differences, whether real or perceived, have been valued, used and relied upon to classify women and men and to assign roles and expectations to them. The significance of these differences is that the lives and experiences of women and men, including their experience of the legal system, occur within complex sets of differing social and cultural expectations. Through gender lens, we can recognize: Womens and men's lives and therefore experiences, needs, issues and priorities are different. Womens lives are not all the same; the interests that women have in common may be determined as much by their social position or their ethnic identity as by the fact they are women. Womens life experiences, needs, issues and priorities are different for different ethnic groups. The life experiences, needs, issues, and priorities vary for different groups of women (dependent on age, ethnicity, disability, income levels, employment status, marital status, sexual orientation and whether they have dependants). Different strategies may be necessary to achieve equitable outcomes for women and men and different groups of women. Through gender analysis, researchers are entailed, first and foremost, in asking questions about the differences between men's and women's activities, roles, and resources. This is done in order to identify the developmental needs of men and women. Assessing such differences also makes it possible to determine men's and women's constraints and opportunities within the agricultural system. At the end, the goal for any innovative agricultural system is to bring stakeholders together to gain collective awareness of the system where they are working, building trust amongst them and creating opportunities for joint action.

88 Through this collective action, they will develop and strengthen capacities that will become important assets in sustaining and supporting the AISs sustainability. Continuous monitoring and reflection during the process is critical to make adjustments along the way. Stakeholder participation and networking are essential elements in each stage of the AIS to ensure that the views of all groups are reflected in the functioning of the system, integration, selection of public actions, evaluation of outcomes and impacts, and ensuring commitment of all actors. Therefore when analysing the innovative agricultural systems, these will reveal successes and failures in innovation systems, governance and policymaking. Conclusions can be valuable in regards to the principles and opportunities for improving the governance of agricultural innovation systems. Policymakers can best approach any AIS to align their development priorities and the demands of beneficiaries, especially small-scale producers by considering the dynamics of local innovation processes. 6.1. Examples of current initiatives for gender and innovation in agriculture Over the last decades a number of innovative approaches to solving various weighty development problems have begun to dot the landscape. However, no one of these specifically analyze gender neither do these differentiate the womens and mens roles, responsibilities and relations. However, the potential of social and technological innovations to address a range of deeply embedded and seemingly intractable development challenges such as poverty alleviation, public health, sustainable transportation, energy services and education has led to excitement among various experts including funding agencies and research institutions. For example, innovation systems such as Product Development Partnerships and Advance Market Commitments have been launched to develop and distribute drugs and vaccines for various diseases (Gardner et al. 2007). The Grameen model of microfinance, an excellent example, has been replicated in numerous countries including North America, Latin America and Africa (Yunus, 1999). New non-linear models of innovation systems in agriculture in developing countries, including India, are beginning to demonstrate the importance of going beyond the traditional model consisting of technology transfers and information dissemination. The need for institutional changes to deal with the challenges is also being recognized (CRISP, 2005). Recent work in innovation systems has added new analytical dimensions, including the study of systems at different spatial (i.e., geographically determined) levels (Saxenian, 1994; Braczyk, Cooke, and Heidenreich, 1998; Fritsch, 2004), at different sectoral levels (Breschi and Malerba, 1997; Malerba, 2002), in different time periods (Anderson and Teubal, 1999; Andersen, 2000, 2004) related to a given technology set (Carlsson and Jacobsson, 1993; Carlsson, 1995, 1997). Application of the innovation systems approach has since been explored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1997) and its members (Arnold

89 and Bell, 2001), the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development, the European Commission, and, more recently, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (Lundvall; et al, 2002). The innovation systems approach has been applied to agricultural development in developing countries by Hall (2002), Spielman (2006), the World Bank (2006) Johnson and Segura Bonilla (2001), Clark et al. (2003) Arocena and Sutz (2002) and Hall., et al. (2001, 2002). A common feature among those authors is that they emphasize the importance of access to knowledge and technology in the development of small farmers. Authors in the Latin American context have focused on innovation systems in general (Melo 2001a), the pro-poor aspects of innovation systems (Alcorta and Peres 1995), and poverty alleviation in rural areas (Berdegu 2005). Berdegu and Escobar (2002) have pointed out that because of the nature of rural poverty and the embeddedness of the rural poor in diverse livelihood strategies, agricultural innovation policies must differentiate among potential targets. At national and regional level the concept was adopted by Samberg (2005), Roseboom (2004), Chema (2003), Gilbert and Roseboom (2003), Peterson, Gijsbera and Wilks (2003), and Hall and Yoganand (2004) in sub-Saharan Africa. In Latin America, it was adopted by Vieira and Hartwich (2002) and in India by Hall et al (1998). Generally, most of its application across countries focused on institutional arrangements in research and innovation. Hall et al. (2002) emphasized on public- private interactions in agricultural research in India; and in south Asia and sub- Saharan Africa. Allegri (2002) and Kangasmemi (2002) focused on producers organizations. Other scholarly studies focused on technologies opportunities, for example zero tillage cultivation survey in Argentina conducted by Ekboir and Parallada (2002) that revealed social, and economic change that encouraged the diffusion of technological practices. These studies are distinguished from the many other works on agricultural R&D because they embed analyses of innovation within the wider context of institutional change and change processes. Further, they offer some answers to certain research questions that the conventional R&D literature is often unable to address. For example, Ekboir and Parellada (2002) offer a detailed look into the social and economic changes that encouraged the diffusion of zero-tillage cultivation in Argentina, a process that resulted from a complex series of events and interactions among farmers, farmers organizations, public researchers, and private firms. Hall et al. (2002) provide an in-depth study of the institutional and organizational learning processes that stimulated the diversification of agricultural research financing in India to include new actors (medium-sized firms and producer cooperatives) and new modalities (e.g., contract research, public-private partnerships). Clark et al. (2003) unlock the mysteries of a successful donor-funded project in postharvest packaging for small farmers in Himachal Pradesh, India, by studying the institutional learning and change processes that were incorporated into the project design. The common thread in all these studies is the emphasis placed on the role of

90 diverse actors and interactions within complex systems of innovation, and the institutional context within which these processes occur. Studies that use an innovation systems framework are recognized by their ability to analyze processes that are typically overlooked in the linear approach to R&D. Innovation systems studies often open the black box of innovation to analyze actors motives and behaviors; the institutions that shape these motives and behaviors; interactive, joint, and complementary processes of innovation; and the dynamics of institutional learning and change. They also provide analyses that extend beyond single industries or markets to capture a wider range of agents (public and private), interactions (competition, cooperation, and learning), institutions (social practices and norms), and policies (science, technology, trade, education, and investment) that condition agents interactions and responses to innovation opportunities. Further, they often provide analyses of policy design from the perspective of policy as a continuous process that adapts to institutional and technological opportunities presented by socioeconomic change and development (Metcalfe, 1995, 2000). This differs significantly from the neoclassical assumption that policy is the domain of fully informed social planners who reconcile social and private welfare within a system of rational maximizers. But while insights from Schumpeter, evolutionary economics, and systems theory have contributed to the development of the innovation systems perspective, they have had little influence on the study of agricultural research and technological change in developing countries. Theories of technological change in agriculture developed in the latter half of the 20th century have tended toward the Hicksian notion of innovation induced by relative factor scarcities, rather than the Schumpeterian system described above. By introducing relative factor scarcities and prices as the key determinants of innovation, Hicks ([1939] 1946) married the notion of innovation to the larger neoclassical framework. Thus, it is Hickss work that gave rise to the modern theories of agricultural development and economic development posited most notably by Hayami and Ruttan (1971). Their work, in turn, gave rise to a dense literature on the role of public research systems in generating technological change in agriculture (Echeverra, 1990; Huffman and Evenson, 1993; Anderson, Pardey, and Roseboom, 1994; Alston, Norton, and Pardey, 1995; and Alston, Pardey, and Smith, 1999, among others), bolstered by studies on the successes of the Green Revolution (Lipton, 1989; Hazell and Ramasamy, 1991; and Hazell and Haddad, 2001, among others). The primary focal point of this literature has been the public sector agricultural research organization, which, in effect, has translated into the study of how national agricultural research systems (NARS) effect technological change through a linear model of research, development, and extension. The NARS perspective recognizes the public goods nature of agricultural research and the absence of market access or purchasing power among many agrarian agents, and thus places necessary emphasis on the role of the state in fostering technological change. Yet the NARS approach tends toward linearity in so far as the movement of knowledge is

91 described as originating from some known source (the scientific researcher) and flowing to some end user (the farmer), with the assumption that social and economic institutions in which this process occurs are largely exogenous and unchanging. A slightly more sophisticated approach is found in the agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS) perspective, which incorporates important concepts from the study of information and knowledge economics. The AKIS perspective highlights the linkages between research, education, and extension in generating knowledge and fostering technological change (Nagel, 1979; Rling, 1986, 1988). More importantly, by focusing on the dynamics of dissemination through extension, the approach rectifies some of the conceptual gaps that had impeded analyses of how knowledge moves between researchers and end users. The AKIS perspective, embedded as it is in the study of how knowledge flows between and among agents, is less linear than the NARS approach. Yet it may be argued that the perspective is limited in its ability to conduct analysis beyond the nexus of public sector research, university research, and extension services and to consider heterogeneity among agents, the institutional and historical context that conditions their behaviors, and the learning processes that determine their capacity to change and innovate. The innovation systems approach broadens the NARS and AKIS perspectives by focusing on the processes by which diverse agents engage in generating, disseminating, and utilizing knowledge, the organizational and individual competencies of such agents, the nature and character of their interactions, and the market and nonmarket institutions that affect the innovation process. Yet the innovation systems approach is still nascent in the study of developing country agriculture. Biggs and Clay (1981) and Biggs (1989) offer an early foray into the approach by introducing several key conceptsinstitutional learning and change, and the relationship between innovation and the institutional milieu in which innovation occurs that become central to later innovation systems studies on developing-country agriculture. Later studies by Hall and Clark (1995), Hall et al. (1998), Johnson and Segura-Bonilla (2001), Clark (2002), Arocena and Sutz (2002), and Hall et al. (2002, 2003) introduce the innovation systems approach to the study of developing-country agriculture and agricultural research systems. Regional and national applications of the innovation systems approach include Sumberg (2005), Roseboom (2004), Chema, Gilbert, and Roseboom (2003), Peterson, Gijsbers, and Wilks (2003), and Hall and Yoganand (2004) Sub-Saharan Africa; Vieira and Hartwich (2002) for Latin America; and Hall et al. (1998) for India. Several studies focus on the institutional arrangements in research and innovationfor example, Hall et al. (2002) on public-private interactions in agricultural research in India; Porter and Phillips-Howard (1997) on contract farming in South Africa; or Hall et al. (1998), Allegri (2002), and Kangasniemi (2002) on producers associations in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

92 Other studies focus on technological opportunities, such as Ekboir and Parellada (2002) on zero-tillage cultivation. These studies are distinguished from the many other works on agricultural R&D because they embed analyses of innovation within the wider context of institutional change and change processes. Further, they offer some answers to certain research questions that the conventional R&D literature is often unable to address. For example, Ekboir and Parellada (2002) offer a detailed look into the social and economic changes that encouraged the diffusion of zero- tillage cultivation in Argentina, a process that resulted from a complex series of events and interactions among farmers, farmers organizations, public researchers, and private firms. Hall et al. (2002) provide an in-depth study of the institutional and organizational learning processes that stimulated the diversification of agricultural research financing in India to include new actors (e.g., medium-sized firms and producer cooperatives) and new modalities (e.g., contract research, public-private partnerships). Clark et al. (2003) unlock the mysteries of a successful donor-funded project in postharvest packaging for small farmers in Himachal Pradesh, India, by studying the institutional learning and change processes that were incorporated into the project design. The common thread in all these studies is the emphasis placed on the role of diverse actors and interactions within complex systems of innovation, and the institutional context within which these processes occur. There is a growing consensus that the range of activities highlighted in the innovation system approach are important for fostering innovation in developing as much as developed countries. The innovation system approach is now becoming very popular in developing countries. Care must be taken in applying to developing countries any approach developed in industrial nations. Nevertheless its core insights about the factors influencing innovation make the innovation system approach a valuable analytical and prescriptive tool for policymaking in developing countries. For example, it can highlight what is absent within a particular country, as well as imbalances and distortions within any type of innovation system that already exists. As an analytical tool, the approach can also identify obstacles to the formation of a well-functioning system of innovation in countries where such a system may only exist in embryonic form (Viotti, 2002). The approach can help identify context-specific factors that obstruct the creation of systems of innovation in the least developed countries, and systemic failures within such systems in more advanced developing countries Indeed, identifying the practices followed in developed countries, and contrasting them with the reality found in developing countries, can be the first step towards implementing the innovation system approach. Another role is as a prescriptive tool for policymaking (Arocena & Sutz, 2000). The practices that it encourages, such as viewing the whole innovation process in a systemic way, can help guide policy initiatives that are intended to address all the components needed by an economic system to facilitate learning and innovation. it provides a way of designing policies that respond to the specific needs of developing countries at different stages of their development. For example, it may identify a need to develop intermediary

93 organizations or to increase a demand for science and technology in the private business sector. There are no blueprints for these complex tasks. The best that the innovation system approach can do is provide a series of guidelines, such as the importance of capacity building in both the business sector and supporting research organizations, fostering inter-organizational linkages, and encouraging a continuous feedback between institutions engaged in research, development, engineering, production and marketing. 6.2. Towards improved policy and practices Rural planners and researchers need to pay much greater attention to policies and institutions, recognizing their dynamic interactions and the need to include them as critical variables in analyses. Discussions about the role of institutions are often constrained by language. In this sense, it involves thinking more broadly about the range of polices relating to innovation and how different policy domains can be coordinated. It is no longer sufficient to focus on research policy alone as the driver of innovation; instead, policy has to address the incentives, triggers and support structures needed to stimulate and sustain creativity. It is also important to recognize that policy imperatives, such as the need to reduce poverty, will only be met if habits practices and institutions are in place to pursue such goals, probably at the expense of other competing agendas. Changes as a result of Processes in Agricultural Innovation The growing realization that the old national agricultural research system model is obsolete as an organizational focus for capacity development, and that while financial resources have declined, many of the constraints faced by research systems are institutional in nature (Byerlee and Alex, 1998). Acknowledgement of the need for a greater role for the private sector in agricultural research, and of the challenges of building publicprivate partnerships to achieve this (Spielman and von Grebmer, 2004). Recognition that civil society organizations and other non-research organizations (including farmer groups) are valuable sources of technical and institutional innovation (Biggs, 1990). Changing paradigms in development practice, whereby participation, diversity and reflection are becoming the expected modes of professional behaviour (Chambers, 1983). The broadening of the policy agenda of agricultural research to include poverty reduction and environmental sustainability (Hall et al., 2000). Concerns about the impact of agricultural research and conventional economic impact assessment as a way of capturing impact and the recognition that institutional learning could be an important tool for improving performance (Watts et al., 2003).

94 Greater awareness of the opportunities presented by rapid technology development and how this is reconfiguring disciplinary groupings (Hall et al., 2004). Greater awareness of a rapidly evolving development scenario characterized by changing relationships between agriculture and the poor, industrialization of the food chain, rapid urbanization and increasing competitive pressure in global agricultural commodity markets (Ashley and Maxwell, 2001).

Public-private coordination is vital and sector reforms represent new opportunities in agriculture. Sector reforms aim to carve out the role of central government (such as ministries of agriculture, women affairs and fisheries) and provide the political and regulatory framework for development and growth leaving the productive activities to private stakeholders. Such reforms provide an excellent opportunity to incorporate gender equality perspectives. Reforms to improve the agricultural environment through removal and reduction of barriers to movement of produce and registration of companies represent a window of opportunity for gender equality. Improved access to markets and market facilities improves the productivity and the profitability of family farms; this leads to higher incomes for farmers, both women and men, to sustain their families. Increased access to resources and assets for women and men is likely not only to reduce economic inequalities, but also, to promote gender equality. Access to and control over agricultural resources such as land, technology and inputs can be enhanced through awareness-raising and improved enforcement of legislation. Financial services to poor women and men can be improved, and mechanisms for access to micro financing facilities, effective tools include relevant information, extension services and training. 7. Conclusion The Agricultural innovation system opportunities can break down traditional gender roles, divisions of labour and the relations of power (World Bank, 2008). Ownership of an agro-enterprise can enable a woman to move out of traditional subsistence-oriented roles and into a profitable market producing or selling commercial agricultural products. The appropriateness of innovations (institutional, organizational) along with technologies can be a crucial consideration, for women who have different needs, capacities, and skills than men. Gender issues must be addressed in the agricultural innovative systems because gender dimension is crucial for economic reasons and from the efficiency point of view. In the agricultural sector gender inequalities are persistent undermining sustainable and inclusive development of the agricultural sector. Second, equity or distributional issues are related to gender differences in outcomes. Gender differences, arising from the socially constructed relationship between men and women, affect the distribution of resources between them and cause many disparities in the outcomes. Third, gender roles and relations affect the critical indicators of human development. Finally, gender equality is a basic human right, one that has value in

95 and of itself. Participatory efforts are required to use the strengths and diversity among the different actors of the AIS and their institutions, to manage innovatively the risks and challenges associated with rapid changes, and to ensure that growth reaches the most disadvantaged - poor women and men. Failure to recognize the roles, differences, and inequalities poses a serious threat to the effectiveness of the agricultural development agenda as a whole.

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