Scaling innovations for reduced and redistributed women’s unpaid care work in smallholder livestock feed provision in rural Kenya and Ethiopia

In Kenya and Ethiopia, the estimated one million women and girls that work in smallholder livestock systems shoulder the bulk of unpaid care work such as fetching water, child and elder care and food production, in addition to their labour in livestock management. This causes mental and physical exhaustion and limits the time women can spend on other income-generating activities. Further, while women frequently put in a greater share of the total livestock management work, they do not share equally in controlling these assets or the income derived from their sale. In addition, women who participate in income-generating activities can also face opposition from within their families.

This project will introduce a bundle of social innovations combined with time- and labour-saving technologies to redistribute and reduce the unpaid care work performed by women in smallholder livestock systems. Social interventions include gender-transformative approaches that promote change in work-sharing norms among household and community members. Labour-saving technologies include the provision of forage species and tools to cultivate, process and conserve the forage, adapted to the needs and preferences of women. Time-saving innovations include a commercial service to hire donkeys to transport livestock feed and village childcare services.

This project is supported under the Scaling Care Innovations in Africa partnership co-funded by Global Affairs Canada and IDRC. Scaling Care Innovations is a five-year partnership aimed at scaling tested and locally grounded policy and program innovations to redress gender inequalities in unpaid care work in sub-Saharan Africa.