Question #2: Using social inclusion data for decision-making
Laura Courbois, MarketShare Associates (MSA)
This is a question for everyone to respond to, including experts and participants:
What are some examples of using social inclusion and women’s empowerment data to inform business decision-making?
Looking forward to the conversation!
Javaid Rafat, Resonance Global
This is a great question, Laura.
There are many examples of how using social inclusion and women’s economic empowerment (WEE) data can help inform business decisions. A surge of interest from governments, the private sector, researchers, and advocates in promoting WEE has led to a proliferation of WEE measurement tools and each tool once implemented can result in valuable data for business decisions. The multitude of tools currently available makes it difficult to know which are most useful for specific purposes and contexts and which have been developed most rigorously.
The Center for Global Development (CDG) has done a great job developing a WEE measurement tool compendium that selects and reviews tools for measuring women’s economic empowerment (or disempowerment) grouped into population monitoring tools (PM) and monitoring and evaluation tools (M&E). The compendium reviews 20 PM tools and 15 M&E tools that help readers locate and choose different tools (and indicators) for different purposes.
At Resonance, we have adapted the Role Change Framework developed by the DFID-funded ÉLAN RDC agriculture and WEE-focused market-systems development initiative to measure the outcomes of the Investing in Women to Strengthen Supply Chains which is a $20M global development alliance (GDA) between USAID and PepsiCo to make the business case for women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in agricultural supply chains. The framework captures key outcomes data that helps PepsiCo, as a large MNC, and USAID with their business decisions. It assists them in understanding and using social inclusion and women’s empowerment data on strengthening women’s agricultural skills and access to resources to achieve their core business and impact goals.
We have renamed the framework for the GDA as the Supply Chain Empowerment Framework (SCHEF), recognizing that (1) WEE is a spectrum embedded in context; (2) progression in WEE is experienced differently by women in different situations (socioeconomic status, existing access to resources, etc.); and (3) measurement of WEE needs to be tailored to context and interventions. There are seven domains under SCHEF for which we developed sub-indicators to measure progress made on each of the dimensions of economic empowerment among women in intervened PepsiCo supply chains.
The WEE Measurement Tool, which is assessing empowerment levels in seven domains, helps us collect data relevant to the varied positions women occupy in supply chains. The seven domains include:
PepsiCo Gender Capacity, or changes within PepsiCo, that improve gender-related knowledge, attitudes, and skills of staff, and enhance institutional policies and practices.
Recognition and Reward of Women’s Labor, ensuring that women’s positions in the supply chain are made more formal and visible to key actors.
Women’s Workplace Conditions pushes workplace conditions policies and facilities on farms and within other supplier organizations to be safe, equitable, and more favorable for women.
Supplier Gender Capacity, or changes in gender-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices for a range of key suppliers.
Women’s Status, targeting improvement to women’s voice, decision-making, and self-efficacy; more equitable norms around leadership and land rights; and opportunities for women to move into new or upgraded roles.
Women’s Access to Goods and Services, to give women ongoing, increased access to the goods and services they need to improve their economic situation (e.g., market information, financial services, childcare services, safe transport).
Women’s Access to Capacity Development, to ensure women have ongoing access to on-farm training provided by an employer or partner.
The framework is an easy-to-deploy approach over complex tools such as the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEIA) which requires a social science research background and can be challenging to implement in a private sector supply chain context. It also offers a robust approach that accounts for the understanding that WEE is a spectrum, experienced differently among women and dependent upon the roles and positions in which they currently find themselves. Given that different groups of women – lead farmers, farm families, and farm laborers – will experience different empowerment outcomes as they participate in the GDA activities, the framework allows for capturing nuances while estimating, on a broader level, the extent to which women’s empowerment has progressed within PepsiCo’s supply chain in the GDA countries.
Data is collected at the individual level with women and men who participated in GDA activities through their roles in the supply chain. The outcomes measurement requires establishing a robust baseline and collecting annual data that will lead to an endline evaluation at the project completion.
As the primary purpose of the activity is to make the business case for empowering women in PepsiCo’s supply chains. It is critical for us to capture changes in women’s economic empowerment and contract holders’ business performance, as well as the relationship between them so that PepsiCo can decide if engaging and empowering women in its supply chain make business sense in terms of increased yield and quality of commodities sourced and if women involvement contributes to an uptake in the adoption and application of improved agricultural practices and technologies.
Rokhaya GAYE
In terms of informing business decision-making, data related to social inclusion and women’s empowerment can play a crucial role. Based on IGNITE’s experience with Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), we have noticed that by analyzing data on women’s needs, opportunities, social challenges, and preferences, MFIs can develop products and services that cater to a specific category of customers. This results in greater advocacy for women’s empowerment, adoption of gender transformative approaches, market share and increased customer satisfaction.
MFIs have diverse stakeholders, including clients, board members, the public, international donors, and local government institutions, to whom they are accountable. With an efficient Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system in place, MFIs can improve oversight of their programs, continuously learn, and use evidence-based data to communicate the impact of their work from a gender lens perspective.
Below are some examples from the Burkina Faso portfolio under the IGNITE project, which is being implemented by Tanager in five countries, including Burkina Faso:
1. Institutional Diagnostic and Gender Audit: The IGNITE project supports MFIs in improving women’s empowerment and gender equality in their business practices. To achieve this, a diagnostic tool and a gender audit tool are used for data collection to assess the level of gender mainstreaming within APSFD (MFIs umbrella in Burkina faso) and its 4 members. This allows MFIs to gauge how well their initiatives, products, and services promote gender equality and women’s empowerment internally and externally. The assessment leads to improved approaches, innovation, and overall employee and customer satisfaction.
2. Training, Mentoring, and Coaching Programs: To ensure inclusive product and service development, the IGNITE project assists MFIs in understanding how they can use data on the specific needs and preferences of women to develop products and services that increase their market share and ensure customer satisfaction. IGNITE provides MFIs (15) with training on gender in management and operations, gender-sensitive products and services, and the analysis and utilization of gender data. Gender performance indicators are used to review existing M&E frameworks and identify financial inclusion gender performance indicators. From this, 4 MFIs developed an action plan to ensure better inclusion. The data analysis from these indicators supports their advocacy for promoting gender equality and inclusivity in their daily work and accross their stakeholders and partners.
3. Social Norms Evaluation: Through a social norms evaluation, MFIs collect data to identify and understand the most pressing social issues related to social inclusion and women’s financial behaviors in the microfinance sector in their different contexts. This information is used to develop transformative strategies that have a positive impact on their customer communities, ensuring the sustainability of their business.
Yaquta Fatehi, William Davidson Institute
Understanding women's challenges in the value chains - whether as producers, distributors, employees, or customers - can help companies design operations, products, and services that improve business outcomes while reducing women's roadblocks to participating in the economy. Social innovation and WEE data can unlock innovations in moving products and services to new markets! Also, imho, if we want to tackle some of the biggest challenges, such as climate change and rising income inequality, we need to unleash innovation and creativity, breaking away from the old ways we did things, and one leverage point is using gendered and social inclusion data (along with sex-disaggregated data) in diagnostic processes, research, operations design, etc.
You can also use social inclusion and WEE data in the operations design phase to find areas where you can improve business efficiency or reduce costs based on the stakeholders' needs, behaviours and preferences, ultimately enhancing financial benefits for the company. In the G-SEARCh project, companies conducted comprehensive diagnostic exercises to identify and design their gender-inclusive business practice - these exercises included interviews with all key stakeholders, including women. Please take a look at the examples here (case studies).
Another example is linked to the study I mentioned earlier: when we found a positive association between self-efficacy (gained by the women salespersons in a last-mile distribution project in Mexico City) and the number of sales made by the women, our recommendation to the company was to continue the life skills training provided by the company to the women and enhance it to strengthen self-efficacy and ultimately product sales.
Best
miranda....@gmail.com
Hi Yaquta and all,
I’ve really enjoyed this exchange on tools for collecting social inclusion and
women’s empowerment data and examples of how companies have used the data.
I have a question for the larger community. We are trying to understand different social groups along value chains that may be hidden/invisible but are contributing or have the potential to contribute more with tailored support from companies and the private sector. This almost always includes ‘women’ but recognizing women as a heterogenous group - and is not exclusively about women.
Curious if people know of or use any value chain assessment or mapping tools that capture this type of social differentiation or intersectionality. Or look beyond ‘women’ as a homogenous category and/or provide other types of disaggregation in addition to sex. And what the experience has been working with companies around other types of (overlapping) social differentiation to support increased social inclusion.
Thanks in advance!
Miranda
Miranda
Morgan, PhD
Research Consultant │ Gender
Equality and Inclusion
Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT
Headquarters
– Rome, Italy
Kelly Fish, MarketShare Associates
Laura Courbois, MarketShare Associates (MSA)
a result of not meeting the buyers’ set standard (Improved compliance with quality standards requirements); d)-Improved capacity of the women/youth POs to sustain its supply contracts by exhibiting consistency in meeting the minimum Pig/pork volume requirements as per the suppliers’ contracts; e)-Improved market access, efficiency & competitiveness evidenced by access to high-end domestic and export market; f)- Improved PO’s entrepreneurial approach to business, enabling entity take advantage of opportunities, and ensure they are ready to be key players in both the local and global economy; g)- A Demonstrated Strong demands for products; h)- Marketing policies are appropriately established and implemented;
3 Increased women/Youth patronage, investment and ownership of,& Loyalty to their POs/DOs & enterprises, evidenced by: a)Increasing trend of active women/youth Pig/pork suppliers; Increasing proportion of active women/youth members using PO’s/DO’s check off facility; b)Increasing proportion of women/youth members who are fully paid up shareholders indicating the growing willingness of women members to invest in their POs/DOs; c ) Increasing proportion of fully paid up women/youth shareholders guaranteeing women/youth/refugee participation in and ownership of the POs/DOs which is very crucial for the POs/DOs sustainability; d) Increasing average number of women/youth members offering themselves per elective post which indicates the willingness of women/youth members to be part of leadership of their organization enabling them to effectively participate in making key decisions about
the leadership and management of their organizations e)-The existence and or improvement of social security programs like (Medical schemes, pension schemes, food/household stuff, school fees for members) that looks at the welfare issues of members and act as one way of ensuring member loyalty to their organizations; f)-The existence and or improvement of water and green energy programs like (solar, biogas, water tanks, water harvesting equipment) for its members which in addition to being environmentally friendly and cost saving, can add to
member loyalty.
4 – Demonstrated robust, effective and transparent leadership (governance) and management within women and youth led businesses in terms of member representation & participation; effective POs/distributor enterprises supervision & control and effective PO management evidenced by: a)-An overall governing body exists that oversees or provides direction for the institution; b)-The board exhibits equitable and effective member representation and participation with a self-development, active recruitment and election mechanism which is documented in by-laws; c)-The independence (separation) of the executive and governance functions with appropriate board level committees; d)Timely, regular & effective conducting of business e.g. the AGMs where members/shareholders make key decisions about the leadership and management of their organizations; e)-External and Internal Audits conducted annually and quarterly respectively and findings implemented which ensures continuous monitoring, control and evaluation of all organization’s processes; f)-Improved Level of education, qualification and competence of PO/DO Leadership & management at all levels thus improved capacity to comprehend technical issues and make quality, informed policy and strategic decisions thus ableto provide vision, accountability and strategic directions; g)-High level of board understanding of the institution and its processes as well as their own respective roles and responsibilities; h)-Annual strategic performance review and planning (i.e. Improved capacity for strategic thinking, planning and performance review thus improved capacity to take stock of PO’s achievements and identifying challenges encountered as well as setting priorities for the following period); i)- The existence of and or improvement in the appropriateness, content, relevancy, usefulness, regularity, timeliness & efficiency of monthly, quarterly and annual functional reporting including financial reporting); j)- Improved professional competence profiles of PO’s staff matching the job requirements; k)-A functional integrated management information system ensuring easy & effective management and sharing of information on a
timely basis across the POs/DOs; l)-Improved Retention Rate of the POs/DOs managers ensuring continuity and stability of the organization; m)- Reduced annual voluntary staff turnover ratio ensuring the smooth running and stability of the PO/DO; n) A demonstrated capacity to foster strong staff performance.
5 Increased & improved access to & affordability of production inputs and services, productive assets & business development services by women/youth POs/Dos evidenced by: a)-POs/DOs operating a feed store(s) and/or has contracted Jac Commodities and or other private supplier(s) where farmers can purchase quality feeds on pre-negotiated arrangement such as check off (or through other arrangements); b)-PO stocking/contracting private suppliers of quality fodder planting material like seeds, cuttings and splits; c)-PO Promoting feed processing and/or pastures improving technologies; d)-PO Contracts or negotiates with Jac Commodities & other feed suppliers for feeding during periods of scarcity; e)-Increased proportion of members using PO’s feed, AH, & AI facilitated services increasing a likelihood of a successful organization); f)-PO Ownership of a semen bank/AI satellite center or link with Jac Commodities and or external semen suppliers; g)-Adequacy of certified AI service and certified animal health service providers; h)- PO operating a drug store(s) or contracted Jac Commodities and or a private dealer(s); h)-A functional extension unit (internally or externally funded) and or use of Jac Commodities Extension Service ; i) access to productive assets like Land for pig production, construction of pig housing, quality genetic breeding stock, water resources like water wells and pumps, water tanks, water harvesting equipment, solar panels & biogas plants, butcher equipment, refrigeration and other cold storage facilities j)- A functional check off system for piggery inputs and services; k)-Ownership of a FSA/SACCO or linkage with Jac Commodities and or other financial service provider(s) offering inclusive, diversified and suitable financial services; l)-Increased capacity of POs to demand for and afford BDS provided by Jac Commodities and or other business oriented external BDS providers and or seek for BDS through proactive strategic partnerships, collaborations and networking with other stakeholders including Government and other development partners.
6 Improved relationship with external environment in terms of other actors working with the women/youth POs/DOs to improve its business environment, corporate social responsibility, (CSR) and risk management as evidenced by: a)-Increased and or improved partnership with other organizations working with the PO to improve its business environment like second tier or apex farmers’ federation & other development partners that bridges the farmers to regional and national level platforms/arena thus enhancing the very important aspects of social capital, lobbying and influencing; b)-Partnerships are formed with other organizations to achieve goals; c)- Increased corporate social responsibility thus enhanced social cohesion within the environment in which the PO operates; d)-Improved risk management capacity increasing the likelihood of the sustainability of the PO.
8 – Achievement of the designated % of women/youth involvement. As a matter of policy & principal, the project will consider a minimum 30% Women 30% Youth and & a maximum 40% Men in choosing its members of the Board of Directors, management & staff and suppliers, Distributors. Jac Commodities in supporting the formation and development of supplier POs & distributors DOs will inculcate and implement this kind of policy provision within the POs/DOs.
9 - Socially Inclusive and gender responsive Human Resource Policies & Practices: Evidenced by a well-document HR Manual, documenting inclusive policies & practices recognizing the strategic roles that staff plays in helping achieving company strategic goals, equality for all including unborn and born children as well as gender equality, the rights and dignity for women as mothers and the roles they play in early childhood development thus provides fair & fully paid Maternity Leave, Medical insurance with adequate coverage for antennal and child birth, child care facility with breastfeeding facility, as well as gender mainstreaming providing equal opportunity for all, offering decent work, fair pay, prospects for personal development and job security for all.
