Paper short abstract:

The study explores the knowledge needs of female farmers and how to accommodate those needs into donors’ M&E practices in the context of rural Mozambique under the current climate urgency.

Paper long abstract:

In Mozambique climate change is causing extreme weather conditions that lead to floodings, cyclones, tropical storms, and other disasters. Agroforestry can be a way to reduce farmers’ climate risk as it increases adaptive capacity and reduces vulnerability. Women are key in taking these practices forward as they constitute more than 70 per cent of the agricultural labour force. Due to gendered norms and practices female farmers have poorer access to various inputs, including knowledge.

The legitimacy of different forms and types of knowledge depends on power differentials, prevailing values, social structures, and political ideologies. International actors that support local initiatives introduce elaborate and costly monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems that produce information especially for donor needs. Simultaneously local communities have their own systems of generating and sharing knowledge that they rely on. Indigenous and local knowledge is acquired through day-to-day living and reflection of observations and experiences of, for example, the effects of climate change on crops and harvests, or on gender relations.

With the current climate urgency and declining aid funding, we cannot afford to spend resources on M&E that is not useful for local actors. This study explores the knowledge needs of female farmers and how to accommodate those needs into donors’ M&E practices. The study promotes democratization of knowledge production by co-creation of knowledge through a transdisciplinary and participatory process that engages multiple actors with different institutional logics and knowledge cultures: a Finnish NGO, local intermediaries, and local communities.