GRAMEEN FOUNDATION

THE COMMUNITY

KNOWLEDGE WORKER

INITIATIVE

APPLAB UGANDA

Potential Impact of Targeting Women

Improving Agricultural productivity

Women do 85% of the planting, 85% of the weeding, 55% of land preparation and 98% of all food processing in Uganda -IFAD

Alleviating food Security

Women in rural areas produce at least 50% of the world’s food – FAO

Improving livelihoods

In Uganda, 72% of all employed women and 90% of all rural women work in agriculture. Only 53% of rural men do so - IFAD

The hungry are farmers, most of the farmers are women and nearly all farmers are smallholders – 2010 Action Aid Uganda Report

Challenges of Targeting Women

Cultural norms and domestic demands reduce women’s mobility and therefore their likelihood to seek information away from home

Can’t afford information resources

Less likely to approach male agricultural extension workers who form the majority of the tradition extension network

Out of Reach

88% of Uganda women live in rural areas – UBOS. Poor infrastructure makes them hard to reach

Community Knowledge Worker

Real-time feedback

loop

Actionable targeted content

Shared technology

platform

Network of village level field agents

Model for Improved Ag Extension

•More, poorer farmers reached •Higher-quality, contextualized services•Increased rate of adoption

1 2 3 4

Layered over Existing Ag Ext to Reach More Farmers 5

Network of village-level field agents

Available at the grassroots . One CKW covers:

4-6 villages

500-800 households

5-10 km radius

Goal is for women to make up a considerable proportion of the network:

35% women composition in the first phase

40% women in phase 2

Emphasis on poor farmers

50% poor farmers among all reached

Shared Technology Platform

18,551 information tips disseminated via mobile phones since June 15th, about 30% of them to women

Database with 4,234 (and growing) on-demand tips on 35 crops, 32 markets, 50+% of the information is on crop lifecycles and food crops to target women

530 WFP baseline survey responses from Oct 1-28, 25% of them from women.

Real-time support to 192 (33% women) CKWs

Farmer databank with 6,005 registered farmers

Salesforce.com based analytical tools and dashboard for M & E, and reporting purposes

Actionable Targeted Content

Information targeting women

Information targeting men

Dynamic Feedback Loop

CKWs: Feedback Relayed from farmers, use case stories, mobile surveys (farmer registration &

poverty stats (1CKW:500 SHFs)

Salesforce.com: Farmer Databank Analytics

Central Database: Usage Reports

Layered Over Existing Ag Ext To Reach More Farmers

CKW candidates are nominated by local agricultural service organizations but the network is more dense/deeper and further reaching than the traditional

extension service

CKW Source/Partner

Organizations

World Food Program (WFP)

Kapchorwa Commercial

Farmers Association

(KACOFA)

National Agricultural Advisory

Service (NAADS)

Uganda Agricultural Input

Dealers Association

(UNADA)

Stability Peace &

Reconciliation in Northern

Uganda (SPRING)

Agency for Technical

Cooperation and

Development (ACTED)

Traditional Extension Agent

CKWs

An Engendered Approach

With our Gender M&E consultant, we developed an approach for ensuring gender and social equity in the project outcomes

An engendered Results Framework and Balanced Scorecard

A Gender Needs Assessment for CKWs and SHF is conducted for every district we operate was conducted in Kapchorwa

All Staff Training on gender mainstreaming

Program & departmental gender metrics reviewed on quarterly basis

Women 33%

Men 67%

Gender Composition of CKW Network

Some CKW Gender Targets

40% women of total farmers served*

35% women composition of CKW network of agents in Phase 1

70:30 male to female CKW profit ratio

35% very poor farmers of total reached

15% repeat users among both male and female farmers

Early Results: Who we are Serving

Females below $1/day

11%

Males below $1/day

35%

Females above $1/day

18%

Males above $1/day

36%

Gender & Poverty Status of Registered Farmers (Kapchorwa SHFs)

Early Results: Strong Demand For Information

54%39%

5%

2%

Information Services: Frequency of use by farmers

(Sept 1 – Oct 21, 2010)

1

2-5

6-10

>10

Performance Against Key Indicators

Indicator Target Actual

Farmers Reached FemaleMale

3,5361,4141,237

46511,0302,939

Total Interactions 11,520 14,616

Total CKWs deployed

200 192

Early Findings: Gender Dynamics in Outreach

72%

28%

82%

18%

Gender dynamics in SHF outreach •30% female CKWs•Female CKWs more likely to reach female farmers (28%:18%)

•Female farmers return to female CKWs 3x in 6 weeks

•Targeting women’s groups

•Researching female demand & barriers to usage

•Exploring incentives for outreach to female farmers

Early Findings: Information Needs for Female Farmers

61

21

71

18

118

7081

3817

41

210

16 13 20 2111

36

0

50

100

150

200

250

Topics Searched by Female Farmers

Early Findings: Female Farmers’ Preferred CKWs

78

42

11

22 22

37

25

8 9

23

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1 2 3 4 5>

Nu

mb

er

of

farm

ers

wh

o c

on

sult

ed

th

e C

KW

o

f gi

ven

Ge

nd

er

Number of farmers consulted a CKW of given gender

Rate at which female farmers consult Female and Male CKWs

Female CKW

Male CKW

Female CKWs63%

Male CKWs37%

Early Findings: Summary

Our Network of CKW is 33% female

Of all the farmers reached, only 29% are female

Female CKWs drive outreach to female farmers Female CKWs served 63% of the female farmers served between Sept,

1 to Oct 25

Registered more than half of the female farmers in the system

Register higher repeat usage among female farmers than the male

Female farmers are very interested in market information, a diversion from early hypotheses

Challenges in Meeting Gender Targets

Greater Inclusion of Women in the CKW Network

Low literacy levels among rural women

Stronger male competition

Heavy Domestic Demands

Greater Outreach to Female Farmers

Low numbers of female CKWs

Unanswered questions around gender information needs and barriers to usage

Skepticism regarding technology

Based a lot on the farm – hard to reach unless extra incentive is given to CKWs to do house calls

Some Solutions to Gender Challenges

Using gender disaggregated data to get better visibility on what our gender impact looks like

Qualitative research to give context to the numbers/data

Gender mainstreaming training for all staff

Recruiting from women’s organizations

Affirmative action in recruitment

Exploring incentive bonus to CKW for reaching women

Questions that Remain

How to incentive CKWs to go the extra mile to reach immobile women

Understanding women information needs and use barriers better

How to include more women given the barriers like illiteracy and domestic demands

Understanding women’s attitudes towards technology solution

We are learning that equipping a network of village level intermediaries with the right technology can lead to greater reach of the rural poor. We still need to understand how to ensure the benefits spread equitably among both men and women as well as the poor and non poor

20

CKW “Information Hub”

How do I deal with this yellow pus on my banana stems?

Appendix 1: Mobile Information Service

Appendix 2: Survey Application

Select surveyTake GPS location

Begin survey