Review on Policy Issues and Gender in Agricultural Value Chain in Ethiopia

Abstract

Gender particularly women are engaged in different agricultural value chain and play the most important roles in agricultural sectors. However, their roles are invisible in developing countries particularly Ethiopia. Empowering women through property rights also had an overall effect on poverty reduction and malnutrition, illustrating the link between the achievement of MDG 1 and women’s access to assets. However, despite these recent initiatives, a mixture of economic constraints, cultural norms and practices continue to limit women’s contribution to household food security and, to a lesser extent, inhibit the commercialization of the sector. Gender inequality is one of the features of Ethiopian society. In almost all aspects of life, women are at a disadvantage. Particularly, in rural areas, cultural, economic and physiological factors place huge barriers across sexes. This review paper was aiming to identify the role of gender and opportunities and challenge of women agricultural value chain in Ethiopia. Now a day, Ethiopian policy created the opportunities for the women by increasing women’s access to and control over assets, increasing women’s access to skills and knowledge, strengthening women’s decision-making role and increasing women’s participation in market-oriented agricultural Production. Contrarily, different challenges were encountered with women in agricultural value chain in Ethiopia. These are limited impact orientation and weak implementation linkages; limited vision of women’s potential exacerbated by cultural barriers, religious influences and a male-dominated society; limited numbers of women and women in leadership positions at community level; limited access by women to formal information and knowledge, and their lack of resources.

Keywords: Value chain, Gender, Empowering, MDGs and Policy issues