USAID Green Invest Asia: Overview of Gender in the AFOLU Sector in Selected ASEAN Countries

As producers, women have primary responsibility for ensuring household food security, and work as custodians of forestry resources in the community. As consumers, women control and influence the majority of purchase decisions in the households. As investors, women are at the forefront of sustainable investing, pressing for impact in addition to financial outcomes. The interest in gender lens investing in Southeast Asia is on the rise, with three new funds established in the region since 2017, totaling a combined $200 million allocation for gender lens opportunities. Globally, this figure is estimated at $910 million for the first half of 2017. The Green Climate Fund, which has disbursed over $2 billion in funding, has strong gender requirements that need to be met to become an accredited partner. In business, the benefits of gender diversity on financial performance are well known and documented. Companies that intend to serve a diverse customer base require accessing an equally diverse pool of resources, including talent and suppliers. By diversifying their workforce and supply chains, businesses send a strong signal to their stakeholders and give them first mover advantage in accessing new markets. Agriculture and forestry are an important source of employment for women in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia and Vietnam, 60% of women in the workforce are employed in these sectors. If adding unpaid, informal work, these figures are estimated to be considerably higher. This gender and social inclusion analysis aims to provide an overview of key gaps within the agriculture, forest, and other land uses (AFOLU) sector of Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, and Indonesia. The purpose is to identify potential gender barriers for USAID Green Invest Asia as well as potential opportunities to improve gender diversity and social inclusion throughout the course of the project. The analysis focuses on four main domains: laws, policies, regulations, and institutional practices; cultural norms and beliefs; gender roles, responsibilities, and time use; and access to and control over assets and resources. It also includes a regional stakeholder analysis to identify key patterns of power and decision-making on gender-related issues in agriculture and forestry. Due to the diversity and complexity of gender and social inclusion systems among and within the countries of focus, the different actors engaged in agricultural and forestry value chains have been grouped in three main categories: producers, employees, and suppliers. Despite the differences in cultural and social norms across the four focus countries, the analysis has identified some common gaps, which result in an underrepresentation of women and minorities in decision-making positions, reduced influence on use of key resources, and overall lower economic gains from their engagement in agricultural and forestry value chains. This analysis reframes these gender gaps as opportunities for agriculture and forestry businesses to build stronger supply chains by attracting and retaining female talent, leveraging the knowledge and expertise of female producers, and diversifying their supplier base. Research collected by international finance institutions such as IFC shows that recognizing the needs of women and improving gender diversity can lead to considerable gains in business growth and performance over time. At the producer level, the role of "farmer" and "forester" has a male connotation, as men are most often those that own land and can enter into legal agreements with others on its use. Women are more likely to do unpaid productive and reproductive work on family or community farms. Because their work is unpaid, it is considered marginal and its value is underestimated. At the employee level, gender segregation in the labor market is pervasive and leads to women being under-represented in high-skilled and higher-paying jobs. In agriculture, the gender wage gap in the region is estimated to be 25-40%. Throughout the four focus countries, fixed mindsets about what constitute appropriate jobs for women are prevalent, leading to women being screened out for any position that requires travel, as it is considered incompatible with their family duties. In Vietnam, 1 in 5 jobs includes gender requirements, and men are overwhelmingly preferred for positions that require travel. In Indonesia, women are often relegated to lower-paying jobs in agriculture, such as harvesting and processing, while men are preferred for higher-paying jobs such as farming and management. In the Philippines, women are under-represented in decision-making positions in agriculture and forestry, and are often excluded from training and capacity-building programs. These gaps result in an underrepresentation of women and minorities in decision-making positions, reduced influence on use of key resources, and overall lower economic gains from their engagement in agricultural and forestry value chains. However, this analysis reframes these gender gaps as opportunities for agriculture and forestry businesses to build stronger supply chains by attracting and retaining female talent, leveraging the knowledge and expertise of female producers, and diversifying their supplier base.