Toolkit - 1 - Introduction

Objective toolkit

This toolkit tries to motivate and help practitioners in integrating a gender perspective in agricultural value chain development by providing practical tools for all stages of the value chain intervention.

The toolkit provides an overview of material available on gender and value chains.The tools are selected from manuals produced by USAID, SNV, GIZ, ILO and the Agri-ProFocus Gender in value chains network.

Target group

Practitioners working with different actors in agricultural value chains.
Practitioners that work with organisations that support or influence agricultural value chains, such as NGOs, knowledge institutions, government, BDS, microfinance organisations.

There are two types of tools:
(i) tools that support data-collection and research to gain insight into gender constraints, - opportunities and - strategies within certain value chains;
(ii) tools guiding the facilitation of participatory processes in order to involve male and female value chain actors in the different stages of the project.

Content of this toolkit

The toolkit follows the logic of the project cycle:

1. Principles

The first chapter provides you with the different arguments to practice gender sensitive value chain development and presents concepts combining value chain - and gender thinking. These are the principles underlying the tools presented on this website.

2. Strategizing

When starting a gender in value chain intervention first there has to be decided on the strategy to follow. This is largely determined by the type of organisation involved. In this chapter five strategies are described addressing gender sensitive value chain development from a different perspective. This chapter will allow you to situate your organisation and to select the most suitable strategies.

3. Scoping

Scoping is needed to get to the eventual value chain, sub-sector or target group within a value chain that will be the subject of intervention. Your scoping strategy will be in line with the strategy you have selected in chapter 3.

4. VC analysis

In this chapter presents a range of tools to analyse the value chain you have selected to get involved in. They will help you to expose gender relations and gender based constraints within these value chains.These analyses serve as starting point for the upgrading phase.

5. Upgrading

The tools in this chapter are organised according to the following categories of upgrading strategies: sustainable production; market efficiency and business climate. Select the upgrading strategy most suitable for your organisation!

6. Measuring

Chapter 6 elaborates tools to measure the success of your intervention with a specific focus on gender issues. Lessons drawn from this measuring process can serve as an entry point in defining a new, or adjust the old upgrading strategy.

Downloads

The ‘Downloads’ section of this toolkit provides an overview of all tools per chapter and sub chapter. It is also possible to download all tools at once.

Sharing

In the ‘Sharing’ section you can find the experiences of others with the use of this toolkit, also completely different tools relevant for gender sensitive value chain development can be share here. APF will review these posts and will adjust tools on the website accordingly.

Use

Design your own gender integration process - Professional responsibility

This toolkit is not a ready-made recipe to integrate gender into your value chain development project. It rather offers a range of tools that can be used per stage of your intervention. It is up to the practitioner to decide which combination of tools to use.

All tools will have to be contextualized and fit in a process

It is the responsibility of the practitioner to adjust the tools to his or her specific situation

All tools fit in a process involving different people at different steps

Most tools describe one step in a process (e.g the data collection, or the participatory analysis). The design of the other steps in the process and the involvement of the right mix of people in the different steps is the task of the practitioner.

Open knowledge - Sharing

The toolkit strives to be a low-threshold portal for the value chain practitioner. We believe in the concept of ‘open knowledge’. We want to make tools not only ‘available’ and ‘accessible’ but also ‘adjustable’. Therefore we encourage you to use and adjust the tools and to share your experiences and adjustments with us. We are also interested in other tools you consider useful. Experiences can be shared by going to the ‘Sharing tab’ in the table of content.

Acknowledge APF

In return we would like to be mentioned as source for the material, so that others can also join our growing network.

Credits
The content of this Toolkit has been developed by Angelica Senders of Fair & Sustainable Advisory Services, Anna Lentink of Triodos Facet and Mieke Vanderschaeghe, independent consultant, with support of Roel Snelder of Agri-ProFocus Netherlands.

The tools are taken from manuals produced by practitioners and organisations, available in the public domain or made available to the Agri-ProFocus Gender in value chains network. The toolkit relies strongly on manuals produced by: USAID, SNV, GIZ and ILO. Click here for an overview of available manuals/ online tools.

Toolkit - 1 - Introduction

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