Bridging the gender gap in livestock projects in Vietnam and Cambodia
Two training workshops were held in January 2018 to develop the capacity of livestock researchers to integrate gender in livestock value chains in projects supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research in Vietnam, and the United States Agency for International Development in Cambodia.
Thirty researchers from the ‘Safe Food, Fair Food for Cambodia’ and the ‘Market-based approaches to improving the safety of pork in Vietnam’, or SafePork, projects learned how to ensure gender is integrated into livestock value chains to improve farmers livelihoods.
In Cambodia and Vietnam, most animal-source food products are produced by smallholders, many of them women, and sold in traditional open markets where women also predominate as retailers. However, value chain interventions have tended to favour men because they control the money from sales. Women who do much of the work are poorly recognized and receive fewer benefits. Integrating gender in programs and projects aims to reduce gender gaps and enhance women’s participation in the economic development and women’s empowerment.
The training was facilitated by Nicoline de Haan, senior gender scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The first workshop was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 22-23 January and the second in Hanoi, Vietnam on 25-26 January 2018.
Participants learned about various gender concepts and how to reflect livestock value chains, food safety and risk assessment under gender lenses.
The key output of workshops was an increased understanding by the researchers on areas in which gender needs to be considered in the implementation of the two projects.
In response to a common view that only men can become a master chef, Nozomi Kawarazuka, a female participant in the gender training in Hanoi created the following video to assert that women can do all things like men. Click the video to see how she cooks as a chef.
