Nairobi – African research institutes need to provide policymakers with better evidence on what works to close the large gap in agricultural production between men and women, says a report.

The joint report published by the World Bank and US-headquartered ONE Campaign aims at providing policymakers and researchers with an assessment of Africa’s gender gap in agriculture and to address the challenge.

The researchers used a statistical technique called decomposition analysis to evaluate datasets from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study —Integrated Surveys on Agriculture initiative to document the drivers of gender gap in agriculture for six African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

Michael O’Sullivan, the report’s lead author and an economist at the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab, highlighted key findings this month (7 July) as the first entry of his outfit’s new blog series highlighting big ideas for Africa.

The study found that even when men and women use the same amount of fertiliser on a given hectare of land, the results are not always equal — men tend to enjoy higher yields from fertiliser use than women.

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By Gilbert Nakweya – SciDev

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