Promising Approaches to Address the Needs of Poor Female Farmers: Resources, Constraints, and Interventions

SummaryThis paper critically reviews some recent attempts to increase poor female farmers’ access to, and control of, productive resources, focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It surveys the literature from 1998 to 2008 that describes interventions and policy changes across several key agricultural resources. Compared to interventions designed to increase investment in human capital, only a minority of interventions or policy changes increasing female farmers’ access to productive resources have been rigorously evaluated. Future interventions also need to pay attention to the design of alternative delivery mechanisms, tradeoffs between practical and strategic gender needs, and to culture- and context-specificity of gender roles.