Women from Bangladesh were included in the study. (photo credit: Shafiqul Alam Kiron/IFPRI)
Oxford University researchers have helped create a new index designed to help empower women working in agriculture in developing countries. The 'Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index' (WEAI) is the first measure to directly capture women's empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. Empowering women in agriculture means helping them produce food, bring their produce to market, obtain loans, tackle community problems and benefit from opportunities to grow their businesses. To mark International Women's Day this week, over 100 senior government officials, academics and NGO representatives gathered at a briefing at the Houses of Parliament to hear about the groundbreaking new approach. The event was co-hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Africa and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development. To build the index, women and men from the same household were ed in three pilot countries with diverse socioeconomic and cultural contexts - Bangladesh, Guatemala and Uganda. Researchers from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University collaborated with the US Government's Feed the Future initiative, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to produce the index.
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