Context, Conceptual Framework and Sustainability Indicators | 45

and contribute to growth through broad-based agricultural development. These include targeting small and mediumsized family farms as priority beneficiaries for publicly funded agricultural research and extension, marketing, credit and input supplies; undertaking land reform, where needed; investing in human capital to raise labor productivity and increase opportunities for employment; ensuring that agricultural extension, education, credit and small business assistance programs reach rural women; setting public investment priorities through participatory processes; and actively encouraging the rural non-farm economy (Hazell, 1999). It is noteworthy that all six modifiers imply some form of human capital enhancement.

     Adoption and implementation of such transformational policies would require political will and political power, but the potential beneficiaries, indeed, the major actors, are largely absent from the decision-making process. The geographical locus of decision-making tends to be in the country's capital or major commercial centers and competition for government resources tends to be heavily weighted in favor of urban areas, where populations are concentrated, vocal and potentially active. Rural poor people in general and rural women in particular tend to be "invisible" to policy makers and service providers, and are without voice or representation in political decision-making.

     Perhaps as a result of this, the rural sector has suffered years of neglect, notably during the course of structural adjustment. Lack of investment in roads, water systems, education and health services, and the dismantling of public extension systems have all left their mark on rural areas and on the people who live there. Rural poverty rates consistently exceed those in urban areas. In all 62 countries for which data sets were available, a greater percentage of rural people were living below the national poverty line compared to their urban counterparts. In several cases, the rural-urban poverty gap was more than 30% (World Bank, 2006b). If it were measurable, the urban-rural disparity in political power would most likely be greater. The male-female power disparity certainly is.

     Government ministries dealing with agriculture and rural development have a minority of women among their professional and technical staff, and only a small percentage at decision-making levels. For example, a 1993 study of women in decision-making positions found that overall, women held 6% of decision-making positions in ministries and government bodies in Egypt. Cooperative agricultural societies had an almost exclusively male membership, agrarian reform societies were entirely within male hands, and land reclamation societies had no women members. In Benin, women held only 2.5% of high-level decision-making positions in government, and comprised only 7.3% of the decision-making and technical staff at the Ministry of Rural Development (FAO-CDP, 2007).

     Local government might appear to provide opportunities for greater involvement of women in political life, yet proportional representation is nowhere the rule. In many countries, patriarchal social systems, cultural prejudices, financial dependence and lack of exposure to political processes have made it difficult for women to participate in public life. The maleness of political institutions and the high cost of campaigning prevent many women from enchapter

 

tering electoral politics. When they do so, however, many see themselves as role models whose political actions should have a positive impact on people's lives. A survey of women in local government in 13 Asian and Pacific countries found that women also brought a more transformational political agenda to the fore, one more attuned to social concerns, such as employment, care of the elderly, poverty alleviation, education, health care and sanitation-all subjects of critical importance to rural people. Women in politics understood the positive impact that female decision makers had on women's participation generally (UNESCAP, 2001).

Gender

Gender is a key category for understanding agrarian societies, as anthropological and historical research has consistently shown (Boserup, 1965; Linares, 1985; McC Netting, 1993). The category refers not, as is often assumed, to the role of women as such, but to the specific social ascription of roles and functions according to gender. In agrarian societies, these roles and responsibilities have been, in most cases, clearly and specifically assigned to either men or women in productive households. In addition, not only work, but also assets are as a rule accessed and controlled according to gender-based patterns. These patterns vary with time and place; a persistent feature is that women have a key role in agricultural work, yet they have often limited access to, or control over, the resource base such as land.

     Hence, the management of resources in agriculture is related to gender. What does this imply for sustainability? It certainly means that research needs to closely look at existing gender-related patterns of resource access and control, to arrive at meaningful conclusions (Linares, 1985). While sustainability has to be a target of farm operations, there may be differential factors at work here.

     Agricultural development has sometimes strengthened patterns that do not favor women. Two factors are considered in this context. First, the double male bias of agricultural extension systems: it is mainly men who represent the state and its agencies, so men control information and communications; and it is men who are considered to represent the community or farming household, so they are the ones addressed. Second, as agricultural industrialization often implies a need for investments, market integration-handling larger sums of money-has favored men in many contexts, as women are usually not considered eligible for credit.

     With growing awareness of this imbalance, the international agricultural research community has developed research to address the issues of women and discriminating gender roles in agriculture. This has often implied establishing a participatory research agenda (Lilja et al., 2000), such as in the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (CGIAR, 2005). While this is a welcome trend towards research products that have been developed with a greater involvement of women, it is not a sufficient condition to change a social fabric that discriminates against women.

Gender and other identity issues in natural resource management

The status and development potential of an individual depend on many social factors. In particular, they depend on