Gender and Rural Livelihood in the Lake Tana Basin

Abstract

This chapter deals with gender and rural livelihood in the Lake Tana Basin, which lies within the Lake Tana watershed of Amhara region in the North West part of Ethiopia. It includes areas around the lake with strong ecological, socioeconomic and cultural linkages to the lake itself. In the basin, mainly integrated crop production and livestock rising and fishery activities are undertaken. As it is one of the major food producing areas of Ethiopia, it has critical regional and national significance. In the basin, women and men have different access to, and control over, productive assets. Economic capacities and incentives are also strongly gender-differentiated in ways, which affect supply response, intra household resource allocation, labour productivity, and welfare. Women are still working in subsistence agriculture where they are in-charge of food production, processing and marketing. Moreover, all domestic and reproductive roles like taking care of the health and education of children, fetching water, collecting fuel wood, and cooking, are entirely done by women and girls. These conditions have become constraints on women's self-enhancement and productivity. Women have weak access to credit, cash, appropriate technology, and information that are essential to increase their productivity and income. Girls are victims of various harmful traditional practices such as early marriage, female genital mutilation, etc. On the other hand, most young farmers have also limited access to resources like farm land and finance for their livelihoods. Hence development interventions need to consider all these gender gaps. PU - SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG PI - CHAM PA - GEWERBESTRASSE 11, CHAM, CH-6330, SWITZERLAND