Smith, S orcid.org/0000-0002-1481-3809, Mdee, A orcid.org/0000-0002-8260-1840 and Sallu, S orcid.org/0000-0002-1471-2485 (2023) How gender mainstreaming plays out in Tanzania's climate-smart agricultural policy: Isomorphic mimicry of international discourse. Development Policy Review, 41 (6). e12718. ISSN 0950-6764
Abstract
Motivation: Gender mainstreaming is often promoted internationally as the vehicle of choice to achieve gender equality. Concepts of mainstreaming are commonly seen in climate-smart agriculture (CSA), where it is proposed that they can bridge gender gaps in agricultural input use and productivity. The rhetoric of mainstreaming, however, often relies upon and perpetuates gender myths and assumptions.Purpose: We investigate how gender mainstreaming has diffused into Tanzania’s agricultural policies. We ask whether the government has the capacity to put these concepts into practice to address gender inequality. We explore this in the context of CSA, an increasingly important aspect of agricultural policy.Methods and approach: Using the literature on policy transfer and isomorphism, we critically analyse gendered discourse in Tanzania’s CSA policies to explore how gender is problematised and governed within policy. We NVivo 12 to code inductively policy documents. We support these insights with the observations of key informants. Findings: We find little evidence that gender has been effectively mainstreamed in Tanzania’s CSA policies. We see a gap between the normative goal of gender mainstreaming, and the practices intended to address gender (and intersectional) inequalities. The gap is made all the wider by limited recognition within government — from national to local — of how such inequalities affect agriculture. Not only are policies detached from local contexts leading to infeasible plans; but also local government lacks both resources and capacity to implement them.
Policy implications: Our study calls into question much of global discourse about gender mainstreaming, especially the myths that support it. It shows how representing the problem in a particular way can lead to dysfunctional policy. A better approach would start with understanding the various inequalities seen in agriculture in Tanzania, inequalities of gender but also of class. It would take into account the capacity to implement policy in the field. A more practical approach, tailored to the realities of rural Tanzania, would benefit the people of Tanzania more than just imitating questionable international discourse.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Climate-smart agriculture, Gender mainstreaming, isomorphic mimicry, policy transfer, state capacity, Tanzania |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) EP/T02397X/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 May 2023 13:27 |
Last Modified: | 07 Dec 2023 10:32 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/dpr.12718 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:199235 |