The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report

Gender Responsive Household-based Approach in Development
Programs : Why It Matters
Ms. Marisna YULIANTI (Indonesia)
Seeing beneficiaries as one family unit or household with shared goals, assets and needs
is an approach that is often used in many development programs. Family members are seen
as a group of people that have more or less similar needs and are expected to contribute toachieving the same goals. In one of its edition of ‘Knowledge Showcases’, the AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) demonstrates how household-based approach has been used invarious settings of poverty reduction programs in countries such as Canada, Vietnam andSrilanka1. Indonesia is not foreign to the concept either. Indonesia’s conditional cash transfer
initiative termed as ‘Program Keluarga Harapan 2 (Family Hope Program) relies heavily onhousehold-based approach in which social assistance is given to the poorest households thathave expecting or lactating mothers and children between 0 and15 years old. It is convenient
for such programs to use the approach since the most commonly used indicator such as wealthrank is, in fact, household-based. Not to mention in poor families, expenditure is usually aresult of collective efforts of family members (e.g., husband, wife and children), which later
will be calculated against their consumption to determine the family’s poverty level. This is
another useful reason to use the household as a basis of intervention.
However, the use of the approach needs to be handled with proper care. Using thehousehold as a basic unit of analysis without further looking at the dynamics of individuals
within the family may lead to conflicts and ineffectiveness in reaching the intended outcomesin the end. In Indonesia, the headcount of households commonly follows Family Registration
Card (Kartu Keluarga), which in most cases specifies men as the heads of the households. The
needs of women and children are often overlooked with men being the only ones consulted andwhose opinions are heard of. In extreme cases, women may not be considered as an entity thatdeserves equal access to the household’s resources since the function has been represented bytheir husbands. A woman can only be acknowledged when she is a widow or a single-mother,which automatically makes her the head of the household. Nonetheless, in the case of single
mothers who live with parents and couples where the wife is a de facto breadwinner, women
would often go unnoticed 3.
The practice is widely seen in agricultural programs aimed at improving famers’
household income. Family farms, although registered under the husband’s name as the headof the household, are usually managed collectively by all family members. Women and men
are both involved in farm work and contribute to all types of labor from land clearing, raisingseedlings to postharvest management with various degrees of involvement 4. It is worth noting,however, men appear to be more dominant in certain tasks, such as land clearing, which issaid to require much physical work, as well as trimming, spraying pesticides and making
overall decisions in the agricultural production. Despite the obvious contribution of women in
the farm, many programs still prefer to apply a limited household-based approach that only
acknowledges men farmers, a status that goes hand in hand with their roles as the heads ofhouseholds. Selection of beneficiaries oftentimes only involves men farmers and does not look
into the division of labor between women and men in the farm, and the amount of time spent
by women and men in the farm and around the house. Women’s knowledge and skills toAlibhai, K. (2009). Tackling Extreme Poverty Using a Household-based Approach. Published in ADB’s Knowledge
Showcases in April 2009
2 Taken from https://kemsos.go.id/program-keluarga-harapan
3 Yumna, A., Febriany, V., Syukri, M., Pereznieto, P., & Malachowska, A. (2012). The politics of gender and social protectionin Indonesia: opportunities and challenges for a transformative approach.
4 The analysis is based on the author’s experience being involved in sustainable agricultural and low-carbon development
programs in Indonesia.
1The 27th Foreign Correspondent Reportmanage the farm and challenges faced are never taken into account in the analysis of theissues. Not to mention, women’s lack of representation in trainings and farmers gatherings isoften seen as women’s lack of willingness and interest in capacity-strengthening activities,
when in fact women are double-burdened with domestic work and faced with cultural values
that prevent them from participating.
Donors and implementing organizations would often turn a blind eye, and later on argue
that since it is a household-based approach, the representation of the household is goodenough. The argument is that the approach would initiate the transfer of knowledge from thehusband to other family members, including his wife. Little do they know that the genderblind household-based approach may entail a more serious issue which ultimately harms theeffectiveness and sustainability of the program. When a farm is run by two people, then it is
only logical to involve both. Failing to adhere to the simple math would cause imbalance andinability for both people to fully manage the farm and improve their yields. Since only thehusband was trained, he would be the only person who knows how to properly spray and trim
the trees, for instance. Then he would not be able to discuss with his wife before making
decisions since the knowledge and skills only revolve around him, and not the wife. Improving
quality and quantity of agricultural products would be stalled because not all the people whoare involved in the farm know what to do and how to do it.
Similar experience was well captured by the Swedish International Agricultural Network
Initiatives (SIANI) in 2013 5 . It documented agricultural programs commissioned by theSwedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) in the Sub-Saharan Africa
and assessed the using of gender lens in the household-based approach of the programs after
observing that women and men work and operate differently in carrying out their daily tasks.
The strategy was simple yet effective. The programs engaged women and men in thecommunity to assess and identify some of the most evident gender-based inequalities in theirhomes using various interactive tools and methodologies and later on, together come up withways and strategies to move forward. The changes and transformation in the community
brought about by the gender sensitization approach were astounding. For many men in thecommunity, the assessment was eye-opening. It provided them with a first-hand insight on thecontribution of their wives to the farms and the burden women had been experiencing on dailybasis. They realized that they did not have to go very far to look for inequalities; they were
there all along in their own backyards. The experience led them to be more tactful and strategic
in coming up with solutions. Women and men in the target areas learned that increase inproductivity and household income would not be achieved without fair share of responsibilities
and access to resources within the household. Women and men then learned to share workload
around the house and in the farm so that both would have equal opportunities to attend
trainings and discussion sessions. The community realized that women farmers need to havethe same set of knowledge and skills to manage the farm as men farmers. This would allow
the household and farm to achieve its targets and continue functioning even when either one
is absent 6.
This study is compelling evidence on how transformative gender-based approach is indevelopment context. Gender analysis is no longer a preference; rather it has become aprerequisite to achieve the intended outcomes. A closer look into gender division of labor,
women’s and men’s daily time use, and differences in how women and men access resources
and their decision making process is essential to better understand how a household works.
When it is clear who are doing what and how, it would be easier for a program to design anintervention. Although gender analysis is considered useful in bringing the pieces together,vulnerability of women-headed households is oftentimes overlooked in the process. WomenFarnworth, C., Fones-Sundell, M., Nzioki, A., Shivutse, V., & Davis, M. (2013). Transforming gender relations in agriculture
in sub-Saharan Africa. SIANI.
6 Ibid.
5The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report
headed households have social and economic vulnerabilities that may be even greater that
men-headed households due to multiple burden and limited access to assets and economic
resources they often experience. A specific focus to assess women-headed households therefore
needs to be set as a priority in every gender-based analysis conducted by donor andimplementing organizations specifically in designing the right household-based approach.