Liberia : Gender-Aware Programs and Women's Roles in Agricultural Value Chains

This Policy Memorandum provides policy
advice to the government of Liberia (GOL) in an effort to
mainstream gender issues in policies, programs, and projects
supporting agricultural production and value-chain
development. It is organized as follows. Section I reviews
women's roles in Liberian agriculture and agricultural
value chains, drawing on a variety of data sources,
including the 2007 Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire
Survey (CWIQ) and the two rounds of the Comprehensive Food
Security and Nutrition Survey (CFSNS, 2006 and 2008). It
also gives an overview of the agricultural sector in
Liberia. Section II uses the same sources to analyze key
constraints faced by women as agricultural producers and in
value-adding activities, as well as key crop-specific issues
in cassava, rice, and tree crops. Section III reviews the
engagement of the GOL in gender-aware agriculture programs
and recommends some key general principles to support
gender-aware interventions, and specific recommendations
aimed at supporting women as agricultural producers and
increasing access to, and better efficiency in, value
addition. Section IV discusses the institutional issues that
need to be considered to support the design, implementation
and monitoring of interventions. Finally, Section V
discusses the availability and the role of appropriate
gender aware data as the basis for policy programming and
monitoring of interventions.