The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (or WEAI) is the first-ever measure to directly capture women’s empowerment and inclusion levels in the agricultural sector.

Developed by USAID, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, this innovative tool tracks women’s engagement in agriculture in five areas:

1. Production
2. Resources
3. Income
4. Leadership
5. Time use

Unlike any other tool, it also measures women’s empowerment relative to men within their households, providing a more robust understanding of gender dynamics within households and communities.

Collecting and Using the Data

Feed the Future uses the index to monitor program performance and track changes in women’s empowerment that occur as a direct or indirect result of Feed the Future interventions. The initiative also uses the index for impact evaluations to examine the effectiveness of different approaches and how they impact women and men.

Data for the WEAI will be collected every two or three years in all 19 Feed the Future focus countries. Baselines were collected in 2011 and 2012. Check out the new WEAI baseline report for a comprehensive analysis of 13 countries.

How does the A-WEAI differ from the original WEAI?

The A-WEAI preserves the same five domains of empowerment ad the original WEAI: production, resources, income, leadership. and time use. However, it reduces the number of indicators from 10 to six.

Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index Resources

• Overview Brochure
• Overview Video
• Instructional Webinar
• Manual and Questionnaires
• Training Materials
• WEAI Data Sets

Blog Posts

• Three Questions about the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (2012)
• Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of the WEAI (2013)
• Four Seasons of the WEAI (2014)

Updates

• WEAI Resource Center
• WEAI Reflections
• Discussion Paper
• Bangladesh Household Survey Results
• Dissertation Fellowships Awarded