Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Thursday, September 6, 2012

FANRPAN - WARM STORY - Women Accessing Realigned Markets (WARM)

1 Sept 2012. The WARM project seeks to strengthen women farmers’ ability to advocate for appropriate
agricultural policies and programmes.

The project uses an innovative tool, Theatre for Policy Advocacy, to engage leaders, service providers and policymakers, encourage community participation, and research the needs of women farmers.

Objectives
  • To provide a platform for communities to dialogue on issues that affect women farmers' access to input markets.
  • To empower women farmers to playa more active role in driving the development agenda.
  • To align development research agenda to women farmers' issues.
  • Align input supply institutions and programmes to women farmer needs.
  • To bring women farmer concerns into national and regional policy debates
Empowering Women Farmers through Theatre

The WARM project seeks to inform, empower and mobilize women farmers to express their needs through a culturally appropriate medium: Theatre for Policy Advocacy (TPA), a form of participatory theatre that allows women to engage their communities in developing solutions to their problems. View Project Brochure

Sithembile Ndema is a program manager for Food and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in Southern Africa. Sithembile manages FANRPAN’s WARM (Women Accessing Realigned Markets) project, which uses theater to empower women farmers in southern Malawi and Mozambique. The production facilitates community discussions about the issues addressed in each performance. Sithembile was also a contributing author to State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.


[15 minutes video] Posted 1 Sept 2012 by AgriConnectVideos

Related:
17th September. UK parliament. London. The Montpellier Panel released their new briefing paper ‘Women in African Agriculture: farmers, mothers, innovators and educators’, at a meeting hosted and chaired by Heidi Alexander MP.

In the briefing paper, the Montpellier Panel call for an urgent and transformative focus on the needs and perspectives of women in smallholder agricultural policy in sub-Saharan Africa.

Women play crucial roles as farmers and businesswomen in smallholder agricultural production, as mothers managing household nutrition, and as innovators and educators. Indeed these roles span across the entire value chain.

This briefing highlights the findings of a programme ‘Women Accessing Re-aligned Markets’, led by the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) from 2009-2012, and other practical approaches to inclusive agricultural development.

Related: 
Action Aid March 2012
Nine international development agencies have produced this briefing to share the lessons learned based on their experience of promoting gender equality and working with women smallholders and rural women over many decades. This paper concludes with a number of recommendations for policy makers on measures to help close the gender gap in agriculture.

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