Impact Evaluation of Rubber and Gender - Cote d'Ivoire Agriculture Sector Support Project, Baseline Survey 2016

The agricultural sector in Côte d’Ivoire accounts for over 20 percent of GDP and provides employment and income to approximately half of all households. In addition, much of the manufacturing and transport sectors also depends on agriculture. The main export crops – cocoa, rubber, oil palm, cotton and cashew – play a key role in the sector’s growth and in poverty alleviation. Indeed, they are crucial income sources for smallholder farmers as well as the engines of major farming systems across the country.

In partnership with the World Bank and the French Development Agency (AFD), the Ministry of Agriculture developed the PSAC project, the effective start of which took place in May 2014. The goal of the PSAC project was to help farmers move from an extensive to an intensive and sustainable production model, based on better farming practices, the spread of high-yielding varieties, greater use of fertilizers, and appropriate mechanization. The overall development objective of the PSAC was to improve smallholder access to technologies and markets – and enhance governance of the country’s main export crop value chains.

The PSAC project had the following four components: 1) promotion of public-private partnership for sustainable cocoa development in South-West Côte d'Ivoire, 2) support to smallholder rubber and oil palm extension in South-East Côte d’Ivoire, 3) support to the cotton sector and promotion of cashew processing in Central and Northern Côte d’Ivoire and 4) project implementation and support to sector coordination. The Africa Gender Innovation Lab was engaged to conduct a gender-informed impact evaluation (IE) of targeted interventions within PSAC. After consultations with stakeholders and assessment of statistical feasibility, the aforementioned interventions within components two and three of PSAC were selected. In addition, within the first intervention, the Gender Innovation Lab, in partnership with the rubber value-chain consortium Association des Professionnels du Caoutchouc Naturel de Côte d'Ivoire (APROMAC), designed and evaluated an innovative behavioral intervention aimed at promoting inclusion of women in rubber cultivation and improving agricultural returns for farming households.

The rubber value chain impact evaluation is implemented in 10 regions of Côte d’Ivoire. 3,231 producers, corresponding to 3,054 households, were successfully surveyed at baseline in June-July 2016 before the start of the intervention. The main respondent was the household head, with specific questions on the rubber addressed to the producer in instances where the two diverged. Producers’ spouses were also asked a subset of questions.