INTRODUCING PRO-WEAI COMPLEMENTARY INDICATORS FOR NUTRITION- SENSITIVE AGRICULTURE AND MARKET INCLUSION PROJECTS

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is the first-ever direct measure of women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agriculture sector. In response to demand from designers and implementors of agricultural development projects, IFPRI developed the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to track the impacts of these projects on women’s empowerment. To monitor and evaluate nutrition-sensitive and market inclusion interventions, IFPRI developed two sets of add-on indicators that are designed to complement the pro-WEAI in assessing women’s health and nutrition-related agency and to identify the constraints that women face as value chain and food system actors. The project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index for health and nutrition (pro-WEAI+HN) includes the pro-WEAI indicators plus additional indicators capturing women’s health and nutrition agency. The pro-WEAI for market inclusion (pro-WEAI+MI) includes the pro-WEAI indicators plus additional indicators to investigate barriers to market access and inclusion for different value chain actors. Both sets of add-on indicators were validated using cognitive interviewing and qualitative work, and the health and nutrition indicators have also undergone psychometric validation. This Policy Seminar will introduce the new health and nutrition (HN) and market inclusion (MI) indicators and explain how they can guide nutrition-sensitive and market inclusion elements of agricultural development projects. A panel of stakeholders—project implementors, researchers, and donors—will offer comments on these new tools and their relevance.

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