Towards gender equality in Tajikistan's extension services

Abstract

In Tajikistan, where an estimated 75 percent of working women are engaged in agricultural work, there is particularly strong potential for taking steps to close the gender gap in agricultural extension. Here, time-honoured societal norms are largely responsible for preventing rural women from being actively involved in decision-making at household and community levels, and dictate that they should shoulder the major share of domestic chores. An assessment organized to identify gender-related issues in Tajikistan’s rural advisory system revealed a relatively low level of understanding of gender norms and their effect on agriculture, even among extension providers themselves – both women and men. Based on group discussions, it also exposed a hidden barrier in the form of elderly women, who were seen as one of the strongest obstacles to young women accessing agricultural services and resources. This was partly due to the older women’s insistence that the burden of domestic work and care should be undertaken by the younger ones. This intergenerational obstacle was particularly pronounced between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, but was the product of a broader patriarchal structure, the session showed.