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Rural transformation is an integral component of economic development, which leads to reduction in poverty and improvement in women’s empowerment. Complete equality between men and women, however, cannot be reached without specific policy action (Duflo, 2012). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have added renewed emphasis on women’s empowerment in the development discourse as 11 of the 17 SDGs require improvements in indicators related to gender dynamics, even though the SDG5 is the only one directly addressing gender inequality (Doss et al. 2018). Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in rural areas is one of the key objectives of IFAD. It comprises three dimensions: economic empowerment to enable both rural women and men to participate in and benefit from profitable economic activities (economic empowerment); equal voice of men and women to influence rural institutions and organizations, including decision making processes at the household, community, and local level (voice and decision-making); and a more equitable balance in workload and in sharing economic and social benefits between women and men (equitable workloads). Our paper contributes to the understanding of the impacts of IFAD investments on gender equity and women’s empowerment, focusing on a synthesis of existing evidence on the types of welfare-improving interventions. More specifically, we summarize findings from six impact assessments of IFAD supported projects that have used the integrated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (i-WEAI) to estimate impacts on multiple dimensions of women’s empowerment.[1] Focusing on this methodology and using data disaggregated by sex, we present the results of the IAs of the six IFAD programs conducted in three different IFAD regions and focusing on a variety of activities and sectors, including agriculture value chains (Mali-PMR, Nigeria-VCDP, and Tanzania-MIVARF), household business enterprises (Ghana-REP III) and natural resources management (Kenya-UTaNRMP and Djibouti-PRAREV). Although all programs paid a particular attention to vulnerable groups and especially women, the evidence suggests large variations in their impacts on gender-related indicators. Overall, while many programs worked towards encouraging joint decision making on income generating activities, they sometimes fell short on improving actual female participation. Finally, female asset ownership is a dimension for which progress is still very much needed overall, as lack of impacts or poor performances were observed for most programs. Particular attention should be devoted to women land ownership, tenure, and property rights that have remained unimproved in all cases. This study also identifies guiding principles for project/program design and policymaking that improve women’s empowerment. [1]The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) (Alkire et al., 2013) and the project-level WEAI (pro-WEAI), the newest version of WEAI designed as a diagnostic and impact assessment tool for agricultural development projects (Malapit et al., 2019), measure inclusion and empowerment of both sexes in the agricultural sector. The integrated-WEAI (i-WEAI), is a novel approach to measure women’s empowerment that is intended to prevent duplication of survey questions (via minor modifications of pro-WEAI data collection methodology) and reduce overall survey time.

The objective of this systematic review (SR) is to identify, assess and synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of feedback, reminders, salience (communication), salience (experience design), and goal-setting interventions conducted in developing countries on environmental/climate and development outcomes. We conducted 12 meta-analyses. The most effective intervention type is feedback, particularly in relation to electricity and water consumption. We identified an overall pooled effect estimate of 0.26 (CI: 0.13 to 0.39). A similar pattern emerges for reminders, specifically on acquisition of knowledge, where we identify an overall pooled effect estimate of 0.87 (CI: 0.34 to 1.41). We find no significant effects on goal-setting interventions based on a limited number of meta-analyses. For salience (experience design) and salience (communication) interventions identified in this SR, the heterogeneity in interventions and outcomes does not allow for a meta-analysis and rigorous synthesis of effects. The SR aims to facilitate the use of evidence in informing policy and practice decisions within the environmental/climate and development fields, particularly in the GCF and IFAD

This systematic review evaluates the effectiveness of life skills training intervention programmes in empowering women in developing countries. Life skills training has emerged as a popular approach to empowerment, often as a part of a multicomponent intervention. Overall, the systematic review finds that life skills positively affect a range of self, social and economic empowerment outcomes. Small but significant positive changes were detected for a range of outcome areas including leadership, attitudes to gender issues, sexual and reproductive health and rights, employment and life skills themselves. There is some indication that multi-component approaches may be more effective. Life skills training can be called a promising approach with potential for supporting women's empowerment in climate and agricultural projects. Including life skills interventions within components of Green Climate Fund and International Fund for Agricultural Development project interventions can contribute to transforming women’s lives, livelihoods and societal roles.

This evidence gap map (EGM) presents a landscape of studies on the effectiveness of behavioural science interventions in non-Annex I settings, a group of mainly developing countries within the context of the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The EGM summarizes causal evidence from development and environmental interventions. Understanding what is effective in changing behaviour in these countries is important for both adaptation and mitigation purposes. Although the evidence base is thin, the EGM reveals that the most commonly evaluated interventions are reminders, feedback, micro-incentives, salience of communication, commitment devices, salience of experience design (how individuals interact with their physical or digital environment), goal setting, rules of thumb, social norms and social benchmarking. The impact evaluations are relatively skewed towards sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and the Pacific. A limited number of impact evaluations have been conducted in Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. A majority of the studies included in the EGM emanate from the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, the financial sector, the energy and extractives sector and the agricultural sector

This evidence gap map (EGM) plots studies on the effectiveness of interventions for women’s empowerment in developing countries (defined here as the list of countries defined by the Kyoto Protocol as non-Annex I countries). The EGM contains 423 studies, of which 288 are impact evaluations, 105 are process evaluations and 38 are systematic reviews. Most evidence is from studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. There is a relatively large amount of evidence on economic interventions and capacity-building interventions, and both these categories in the map have a high number of impact evaluations and systematic reviews. There is a dearth of evidence on policy and institutional interventions. In terms of outcomes, political empowerment outcome categories are far less populated than other outcome categories. Women’s representation in political bodies, digital access and access to justice shows very little evidence.