Dataset on Women's empowerment, land and donor-driven agricultural interventions in Eastern Zambia

A survey was conducted with 235 randomly selected households to investigate women's empowerment, land and donor-driven agricultural interventions in Eastern Zambia [1] for aid programmes with (Norwegian) and without (Chinese) women empowerment goals. The survey was complemented by six focus group discussions (FGDs) and 12 key informant interviews. A triple-stream approach for focus discussions was used (i.e. women-only, men-only, and mixed gender). The results suggest that despite differing aid programme modalities, there was increased access to, and control over, productive resources by women farmers. At least 60% of the respondents reported joint ownership of all types of livestock and poultry, including large livestock such as cattle. Within households, decisions on cotton, groundnuts, and maize were made jointly by the husband and wife. Greater than 70% of the respondents in both Norwegian and Chinese aided households reported joint decision making by the husband and wife. Although both men and women farmers attended training sessions, the percentage of attending respondents was lower for Chinese-aid affiliated farmers. The majority (81% - Norwegian aid; 89% – Chinese aid) jointly earned and owned the income from cotton. When women entered into contract farming with the cotton company, operations management was performed by the entire household, and the applicable income was considered jointly earned.