Annex 8 Gender Assessment For the GCF-FAO Project “Transforming Livelihoods through Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in the Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya”

The report assesses gender inequalities in Kenya's agricultural sector, specifically within the Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB). It identifies systemic barriers for women, including limited land ownership, restricted access to finance, and a disproportionate domestic work burden, which exacerbate their vulnerability to climate change. The assessment analyzes six priority value chains—coffee, tea, fruit trees, African leafy vegetables, poultry, and dairy—finding that while women provide the majority of labor, they are often excluded from leadership and financial control, particularly in 'masculinized' cash crops. To address this, the project proposes a Gender Action Plan using Gender Transformative Approaches (GTA) and Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) to shift deep-rooted socio-cultural norms and improve the representation and agency of marginalized groups in agricultural cooperatives.

• Women provide a vast majority of agricultural labor in Kenya, accounting for approximately 75% of the labor force and managing 40% of small-scale farms, yet they face significant barriers to formal market participation due to discriminatory social norms.
• Land ownership is heavily skewed toward men, with women holding only about 1% of registered land titles, which prevents them from using land as collateral for credit and limits their decision-making power over high-value cash crops.
• Women in Kenya experience a severe 'time poverty' due to a double burden of unpaid care work and agricultural labor; they work an average of 12.9 hours per day compared to 8.2 hours for men.
• In the coffee sector, women perform up to 70% of the production labor but hold less than 5% of leadership roles in cooperatives, leading to a gap between their labor contribution and the financial benefits they receive.
• Climate change disproportionately affects women because they rely more heavily on natural resources for daily livelihoods and have fewer assets and secure land rights to implement adaptation strategies.
• There are distinct gender differences in how climate information services (CIS) are accessed; women show a higher preference for radio and social groups, while men are more likely to use extension officers.
• A survey of 321 cooperatives in the LREB revealed that men constitute 70.8% of membership, while women make up only 29.2%, with young women being the least represented group across all six analyzed value chains.
• The project will implement Gender Transformative Approaches (GTA) and Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) to address the root causes of inequality rather than just the symptoms.
• Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant risk for women in Kenya, with 39.4% of women experiencing GBV in their lifetime, and risks can increase when women take on leadership roles or travel longer distances for water due to climate change.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2025). Annex 8 Gender Assessment For the GCF-FAO Project “Transforming Livelihoods through Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in the Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya”. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp255-genderassesment.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. Annex 8 Gender Assessment For the GCF-FAO Project “Transforming Livelihoods through Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in the Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya”. 2025. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp255-genderassesment.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=Annex 8 Gender Assessment For the GCF-FAO Project “Transforming Livelihoods through Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in the Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya” |date=20 February 2025 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp255-genderassesment.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2025annex, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{Annex 8 Gender Assessment For the GCF-FAO Project “Transforming Livelihoods through Climate Resilient, Low Carbon, Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in the Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya”}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2025}, month = feb, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp255-genderassesment.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }