Advancing Gender Equality in Fragile Food Systems in the Sahel

The project was conducted in Bor County, Jonglei State, of South Sudan. Bor is highly vulnerable to climate change as its population relies on climate-sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods. The overarching objective was to examine gender-transformative adaptation strategies aimed at building climate-resilient communities among the Dinka of Jonglei in South Sudan. The findings of the study revealed that gender inequalities and social exclusion are deeply rooted in the belief systems and cultural practices of the Dinka community. The study contributed to the understanding of the nexus between climate change, conflict, and gender in South Sudan. It highlighted the need for addressing underlying causes of gender inequality, including social norms and cultural beliefs, and promoting women's empowerment through education and participation in decision-making processes.

This action research programme was conceived to identify barriers and find effective women’s empowerment strategies that focus on changing the prevailing norms that promote perpetual gender inequality. It focused on generating outcomes in behaviours, relationships, actions, and activities of people that positively impact on the empowerment of women/girls in the rural communities of the Sahel region. With respect to research outcomes the findings of the research component show that, although women hold crucial roles in the farming/pastoralist economy of the Sahel region of Nigeria, they are also marginalized by institutions and policies, both within their own communities and in wider governance. The study highlighted some of the ways in which the marginalization of women and the neglect of the rural farming/pastoralist population intersect to leave the farming and pastoralist women extremely vulnerable.

The strategies to enhance evidence-informed policy making in Nigeria include enhancing supply of policy-relevant research products; enhancing the capacity of policymaking organizations to use evidence; establishing new organizational mechanisms to support use of evidence in policy; promoting networking; and establishing norms and regulations regarding evidence use in policymaking. It is in this context that there is urgent need to create organs and networks that can enhance improved interaction between researchers and policymakers on the challenges facing the empowerment of women in pastoralism and agriculture in Nigeria. This policy brief outlines one of such approaches being used by the Centre for Population and Environmental Development (CPED), Benin City to collaborate with policymakers in Bauchi and Gombe States with respect to the empowerment of women in pastoralism and agriculture in their respective states. This will help to focus research activities on women empowerment on pastoralism and agriculture so as to increase the utilization of research and engage with the relevant actors in policymaking in the two states.

Conducting action research on women’s empowerment in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS) poses a particular set of challenges. These challenges are sometimes similar in nature, but different in dimension, to the usual ones that arise from research on gender, and research conducted through international funding partnerships. This brief distils lessons from these locally led projects, and targets research funders who want to fund research in FCAS. It adds to existing studies on research in FCAS, much of which are written from a largely global North perspective and focus on how to engage as an outsider. Some of the lessons that we detail here are not exclusive to FCAS – but those particular contexts exacerbate how the issues they address manifest.