# EXECUTIVE SUMKARY

Agricultural extension has not been particularly kind to Africa's women - farmers. Despite the critically important role of women in African agriculture they are responsible for at least 70 percent of food staple production, and Pre - also significantly involved in other agricultural activities agricultural extension services have been geared towards male farmers. Women are underrepresented within extension services and, compared to male farmers or farming couples, women farmers receive far less attention from extension services and corsequently benefit much less from improved farming techniques. After five years of innovative programming to reach women farmers, the North West Development Project in Cameroon demonstrates that this scenario of neglect is avoidable.

The North West Province, with an average precipitation of 2250 millimeters and a 2500 meter altitude range, has many cropping systems. In the mid 1970's, an integrated, large scale agricultural development project was conceived for the province which, despite its agricultural potential, was one of the poorest areas in the country. The design was changed several times before it was finalized in 1983, the first year of activity. MIDENO (Mission de Developpement de la Province du Nord-Quest) was established as the coordinating agency responsible for general management, financial control, and planning, monitoring and evaluation. Existing organizations were given responsibility for implementing the six components: adaptive research; agricultural extension and training; agricultural credit; agricultural input supply; village water supply; and roads. An animal traction program was incorpor-ted later.

The original design retained the pre-project aifurcated extension service with separate organizations responsible for coffee and food crops. A result of the collapse of the coffee extension organization at the beginning of the project was the creation of a single integrated extension service.

The project design team had access to various studies on rural women in Cameroon and, although women farmers were not specifically mentioned in the goals, they figured predominantly in the extension and credit aspects of the project design. In particular, the use of female extensicrI agents was emphasized and innovative modifications were introduced to the extension strategy of the T and V model. The approach used was not ideological but technical and based on efficiency criteria: food crops were a major concern of the project and women were the major growers of food crops. In contrast, the strategies used by the animal traction component to target women were not identified initially but evolved gradually.

# Recruitment and training of female field staff

The project called for a more than doubling of field staff and an informal target was set of hiring equal numbers of males and females. With female recruitment of 25 percent, the gender target was not achieved, but by 1988, females accounted for 18 percent of Village Extension Workers (VEWs) and 14 percent of Extension Supervisors (the two grades under MIDENO control). The results are remarkable given the pre-project ratios and fairly stiff academic requirements, and compare favorably with the situation in other African extension services.