In this paper we empirically analyse the impact of mothers' non-farm entrepreneurship on child secondary school enrollment in rural Ghana. We use nationally representative quantitative data from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) and qualitative data from focus group...

The focus in this paper is on two relatively large maize-based contract farming (CF) schemes with fixed input packages (Masara and Akate) and a number of smaller and more flexible CF schemes in a remote region in Ghana (Upper West). Results show that these schemes led to improved technology...

Contract farming (CF) is attractive as a possible private-sector-led strategy for improving smallholder farmers' welfare. Yet many CF schemes suffer from high turnover of participating farmers and struggle to survive. So far, the dynamics of CF participation have remained largely unexplored. We...

Improving women's access to land is high on the agricultural policy agenda of both governmental and non-governmental agencies. Yet, the determinants and rationale of gendered access to land are not well understood. This paper argues that gender relations are more than the outcomes of...

This paper uses evidence from Southeast Asia to challenge current interpretations of quantitative data on individual, formal asset ownership in relation to women's decision-making power and empowerment. By overlaying quantitative data with a qualitative understanding of gender norms in rural...

Land provides the basis for food production and is an indispensable input for economic livelihoods in rural areas. Landownership is strongly associated with social and economic power, not only across communities and households, but also within households. The link between landownership and...

For decades, policymakers and development practitioners have debated benefits and threats of property rights formalization and private versus customary tenure systems. This paper provides insights into the challenges in understanding and empirically analyzing the relationship between tenure...

At a time when donors and governments are increasing efforts to mainstream gender in agriculture, it is critical to revisit long-standing wisdom about gender inequalities in agriculture to be able to more efficiently design and evaluate policy interventions. Many stylized facts about women in...

This report describes the baseline data collected from 1,835 men and women respondents in 998 households in two irrigation sites in the central dry zone in Myanmar to help diagnose, design, and test interventions to enhance the Myanmar Agricultural Development Support Project’s impacts on...

Many rural development programs aim at improving women’s economic empowerment in agriculture, but as rural income continues to diversify, women may prefer investing in nonfarm activities. In a framed field experiment with 1,527 men and women in Ghana, we elicit preferences for investments in...