A Gender Analysis of the Socio-Cultural Contexts of Iringa, Morogoro and Rukwa Regions and the USAID/Lishe Endelevu Activity

This report supports the development of a Social and Behavior Change (SBC) strategy through an analysis of gender-related issues within each of the three intermediate result areas of LISHE ENDELEVU. It describes gender-related issues that are relevant to the LISHE ENDELEVU Activity’s implementation and providers’ recommendations to help strengthen the project’s ability to implement gender-sensitive and gender transformative interventions that:
(a) Support the achievement of LISHE ENDELEVU’s broad program goals which are to reduce childhood stunting and improve maternal nutrition, child nutrition and adolescent nutrition in the zones of intervention; and
(b) Represent a strategic, integrated approach with activities that enhance or improve on existing activities within draft LISHE ENDELEVU’s Y1 work plan and maximize LISHE ENDELEVU’s impact on increasing gender equity and empowering women.
The objectives of the gender analysis were to: Conduct a rapid situation analysis of significant gender issues that are relevant and important for the LISHE ENDELEVU project to be aware of and to address in areas of LISHE ENDELEVU’s zone of intervention selected by the project team; To assess the extent to which gender has been incorporated into the existing design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, staffing, policy, capacity building, networking and communications areas of the LISHE ENDELEVU activity; To identify key opportunities and constraints for LISHE ENDELEVU to integrate gender-sensitive and/or gender-transformative interventions into its strategic approach to social and behavior change for improved nutrition outcomes among the priority beneficiaries and to generate findings and recommendations to: inform the development of LISHE ENDELEVU’s social and behavior change strategy; enhance the existing first 1000 days SBCC strategy that is deployed through the “Parents Kit”; and improve or potentially add to LISHE ENDELEVU’s existing performance indicators.
The gender analysis included a review of Tanzania’s Demographic Health Survey data related to women’s empowerment and gender equity, an assessment of the degree to which gender is addressed in two major policy documents—Tanzania’s National Nutrition Strategy (2011/2012 – 2015/16) and the Tanzania Agriculture Policy (2013) and a rapid qualitative study conducted in communities in Rukwa, Iringa, and Morogoro. Focus group discussions and in depth interviews were the main methods of data collection in the qualitative study. Overall, 126 individuals were interviewed in the rapid qualitative study conducted in the three regions: one hundred nineteen (119) individuals participated in fifteen focus group discussions (FGDs) and seven key informants participated in individual interviews. The study population was pregnant or breastfeeding women, husbands of pregnant or breastfeeding women and adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19 years old. Key informants included agriculture extension officers, community health workers, and nutritionists.
Results found that both men and women have agricultural roles and engage in raising crops and livestock. Men exert control over most of the decision-making on how household income will be used and are expected to provide food, shelter and other resources for the family. Women and adolescent girls are expected to tend the home, to ensure the care and feeding of the children and the family, and to be responsible for water, hygiene and sanitation in the household, although most participants reported that families do not routinely practice recommended WASH behaviors, particularly hand washing at critical times, and that open defecation in the bush or digging holes to defecate in are common practices for people who must walk long distances to their farms. Society holds firm expectations around these gender roles and the research indicated that men and women alike are reluctant to challenge societal expectations and behave in ways that would contradict their prescribed gender roles. Also men are perceived to hold a superior ranking in the family. Women, meanwhile, are perceived to be weak, and are expected to be submissive, to obey what they are told by their husbands. Gender roles and identities were observed to create tensions in family dynamics and couple relationships, particularly in terms of gender inequities in workloads and in access to and control of income. Across the regions, it found that adolescent girls are largely influenced by their mothers. Adolescent girls reported having limited communication with their fathers and said that when they needed their fathers’ support, they would typically use their mothers as the mediators between them and their fathers.