Gender in Cooperatives

Agenda

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Background and challenges Proposed interventions

A Cooperative Sector strategy was launched to promote and catalyze the cooperative movement To contribute to Ethiopia’s GTP goals of increasing small holder income a Cooperative Sector Strategy was launched to address increase small holder income by enabling cooperatives provide effective and sustainable services to members and by sustaining enabling environment and regulatory oversights to support cooperative movement

To contribute to Ethiopia’s overall vision of achieving middle income status by 2025 by increasing smallholder farmers’ productivity and income through agricultural cooperatives.

Creating well-functioning agricultural cooperative sector that helps many smallholder farmers increase their yields and incomes through;

autonomous and efficient cooperatives at all tiers that provide effective and sustainable services to members robust enabling environment of policy and regulatory oversight as well as capable and reliable service providers that ensure s

cooperatives have the necessary support to succeed.

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Vision

Mission

A number of challenges limit the participation of women in the current cooperative system

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Women face a number of challenges to participate in cooperative programs:

• Social limitations• Economic limitations• Heavy workload• Level of education • Selection criteria for

cooperative members• Existing gender biased

system (e.g., attitudes, practices, services,

policies)• Lack of support from

cooperative promoters

There is a very low level of women participation

in the current cooperative system:

• Limited opportunities for women’s participation in decision making areas

• Women have limited access to and control

over resources such as credit, education,

training, producing inputs and marketing

output

There is lack of disaggregated data on gender inclusion in cooperative program resulting very low awareness of the

bottleneck

Laye Women’s Primary Cooperative, Becho Woliso Farmers Coops Union

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Woldejalela Women primary coops

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Agenda

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Background and challenges Proposed interventions

The principles of cooperative and

gender integration advantages

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• Cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united

voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural

needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and

democratically-controlled enterprise.

• Cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, mutual responsibility, equality and

equity

• Active, equitable participation of members, both men and women,

is a necessity for sustainable cooperative development

• Smallholder households’ yields and incomes increase

disproportionately when women are beneficiaries of coop services• Women in leadership positions

are more likely to address gender issues and safeguard the

interests of women

Cooperative principles Gender integration principles

Gender mainstreaming strategies were proposed after identifying gaps (1/2)

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Lack of gender equality awareness among cooperative

members, policy makers, cooperative promoters, and

cooperative managers

Raise gender equality awareness among the key stakeholders through focus

group discussion and awareness creation tools (e.g.

training manuals)

Identified Gaps Proposed strategies

Lack of commitment for gender equality among cooperative

members, policy makers, cooperative promoters, and

cooperative managers

Institutionalize gender equality in the coops sector – (assign gender focal persons, mentoring, coaching, design strategies, guidelines, etc)

Lack of gender sensitive indicators (sex and gender

disaggregated data)

Set gender disaggregated data as a criteria for performance indicator

Gender mainstreaming strategies were proposed after identifying gaps (2/2)

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Limited capacity of women cooperative members to

access productive resources; land, finance, skills &

knowledge

Create opportunities for women cooperative members

access to resources and benefits (Finance, extension services, agricultural inputs,

business skills, etc.)

Identified Gaps Proposed strategies

Cooperative services are not effective enough to address women members’ interest and attract more women

Ensure the equal benefit of women and men from

available services (infrastructure, time,

information, and service providers)

Lack of institutional support for promoting gender equality

in the Cooperative Sector

Address inequality in institutional systems,

policies, internal bylaws, etc.

The team proposes number of interventions to address identified gaps

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Awareness creation, gender sensitization, education and lobbying cooperatives can help remove the obstacles to women's equal participation

Need based training and education programs to women cooperatives and strengthen women's self-confidence and enabling them to participate more fully in decision-making and assume leadership positions collect gender disaggregated data and help identify different types of projects focused to women's needs which can help them increase their income-earning capacities and alleviate their work loads Lobby for gender sensitive institutional systems, policies, internal bylaws, etc. to be in place (curriculum, gender focal person in FCA, gender mainstreaming strategies and guidelines)

Consider gender equality and equity as one part of the criteria for advanced certification of cooperatives

Strengthen coordinated efforts between stakeholders in gender integration

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