The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), launched in 2012 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), and the Feed the Future Initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is the first comprehensive and standardized instrument to directly measure women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. Responding to the demand for an instrument to measure women’s empowerment within project-specific contexts, the project-level WEAI (or pro-WEAI) was developed. Pro-WEAI has specialized project-relevant modules as well as optional modules tailored to livestock, nutrition and health, and market inclusion programs. Additionally, pro-WEAI includes qualitative protocols to add nuance to the quantitative results.
We developed this online course to train researchers and practitioners on all aspects of pro-WEAI, from its background to its practical application within a project context. The full course is composed of six modules, beginning with the Foundations module, which must be completed prior to enrolling in other modules.
Target audience:
This module is designed for anyone who is interested in understanding the basics of pro-WEAI. The primary audience for this module includes:
- NGO and consulting firm staff
- Researchers in universities, national agricultural research systems (NARS), CGIAR institutions, and other international organizations
- Donors and development partners
- Government and UN agency staff
- Development practitioners
Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this module, learners should be able to:
- Discuss the conceptual underpinnings of pro-WEAI, including the concept of women’s empowerment and the Reach, Benefit, Empower Framework.
- Describe key elements of pro-WEAI, including domains and indicators, and how pro-WEAI is constructed.
- Understand how the qualitative protocols may be used in concert with the quantitative tool.
- Interpret quantitative pro-WEAI results using standard tables and charts.
- Diagnose, using pro-WEAI, key areas of disempowerment and how they may be affected by project interventions.
Note that this module emphasizes the fundamentals and does not cover details on how to implement the quantitative surveys or qualitative protocols, or how to compute the index. These subjects will be covered in later modules of the course. We recommend that anyone who will be implementing pro-WEAI take those modules as well.
Structure:
This module involves approximately 3 hours of online content followed by a final quiz (approx. 45 min). The rate of completion may vary depending on learning styles, prior knowledge, and previous experience. The module is broken down into three units, as follows:
PLEASE SIGN UP AND ENROLL THE COURSE TO ACCESS THE UNITS BELOW.
- Unit 1: Understanding empowerment and the Reach, Benefit, Empower Framework [approx. 45 min]
- Unit 2: Pro-WEAI methodology [approx. 1 hour]
- Unit 3: Interpreting pro-WEAI [approx. 1 hour]
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Final quiz [approx. 45min]
