Participatory Gender-Sensitive Approaches for Addressing Key Climate Change-Related Research Issues: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ghana and Uganda

This publication, consisting of several modules, includes participatory research approaches for examining a wide range of questions regarding if and how farming practices are being modified to deal with a changing environment, and the constraints and opportunities these changes pose for both men and women. It also covers three main research priorities relating to the climate change, agricultural development and food security ‘nexus’: (1) facilitating farmer exchange visits and other approaches for sharing adaptation strategies in ‘climate analogue’ areas; (2) assessing how to facilitate the use of daily and seasonal weather forecasts for farmers and how to make access to forecasts more equitable; and (3) understanding and catalysing gender-sensitive, climate-smart agricultural practices. Research teams from Bangladesh, Ghana, and Uganda helped select and further develop a range of participatory approaches along with the CCAFS and FAO researcher/trainer team. Particular attention was paid to the sampling frame and training to help ensure the guiding questions were asked in the same way, and reported in the same format, in order to allow cross-site comparison of results. The teams tested the approaches in a pilot study that covered one CCAFS site within each of the three countries, and came together again shortly afterwards to report on the results of the field test and further improve and refine the training materials based upon their experiences. This paper reports on the results and lessons learned from this pilot test in the villages of Chandipur in Bangladesh, Kyengeza in Uganda, and Doggoh in Ghana.