Guest Editor Ekua Biritwum
Numerous studies have sought to unravel the social and economic dynamics of rural women’s constraints in accessing and controlling productive resources in agriculture. A focus largely informed by the high prevalence of poverty amongst rural women. At the policy level there have been several interventions to overcome resource access constraints to boost agricultural productivity. The preponderance of interventions notwithstanding, studies lament persistent deprivation in the face of resistant social norms that govern wowen’s access to productive resources. Such revelations have led to an increasing demand to involve beneficiaries of development interventions in projects design and their implementation. Noting such concerns, the Gender and Rural Livelihoods research cluster of the International Center for Development and Decent Work of the University of Kassel, Germany, carried out a series of case studies over a period of 4 four years examining the situation of rural women. The team of researchers are from three countries of the global south, two African, Ghana and Kenya and the other Asian, Pakistan. Their studies explored factors promoting rural women’s uptake of agricultural interventions and the empowering potential of these interventions in the three countries.
