Graduate School of Development Studies

A Research Paper presented by:

Lydia Biriwasha(Zimbabwe)

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the degree of

MASTERS OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Specialization:Rural Livelihoods and Global Change

(RLGC)

Members of the examining committee:

Dr Anirban Dasgupta (Supervisor)Prof. Dr Max Spoor (Reader)

Jatropha Production and Women’s Empowerment

Jatropha Production and Women’s Em-powerment

(The case of Chindenga Village in Mutoko District, Zimbabwe)

The Hague, The NetherlandsDecember, 2010

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Disclaimer:This document represents part of the author’s study pro-gramme while at the Institute of Social Studies. The views stated therein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute.

Inquiries:Postal address: Institute of Social Studies

P.O. Box 297762502 LT The HagueThe Netherlands

Location: Kortenaerkade 122518 AX The HagueThe Netherlands

Telephone: +31 70 426 0460Fax: +31 70 426 0799

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Dedication

This work is dedicated to my loving parents Felistas and Robert Biriwasha and the entire Biriwasha family for their love, support and prayers which saw me complete this pro-ject successfully. I also dedicate it to God Almighty for the strength He gave me each day

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Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to give thanks and praise to the Almighty God for taking me this far. Also I would like to ex-press my gratitude and appreciation to the Netherlands Or-ganisation for International Cooperation in Higher Educa-tion (NUFFIC) for granting me the scholarship to undertake this program.

To my supervisor Dr, Anirban Dasgupta, I would like to thank you so much for your cooperation and ever-readiness to guide and support me to make this paper a success. I am also indebted to my second reader Prof, Dr, Max Spoor for guidance and support throughout the study. Thank you all for the constructive criticisms and suggestions you always gave me. I must say without them this paper would not be where it is today.

Also, many thanks go to the women in the Chindenga vil-lage, for taking time to talk to me amidst their busy sched-ules. I would also like to express my appreciation to the various organisations that provided me with information during my field study: Plan International (Mutoko), National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM), Finealt Engineers, and the Ministry of Energy and Power Development. Their responses were of great value to this paper.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Rural Livelihoods and Global Change (RLGC) specialisation. I must say it was a great team of ladies and the experiences we shared from different countries were awesome, they helped me a lot. To the teaching staff I would like to thank you for your commit-ment and encouragement rendered throughout the project.

Lastly, to all my dear friends Gracious Ncube, Felicity Mun-emo, and Patience Matandiko – you were a family away from home. I will cherish the good times we shared in this place. And to my fellow country people at the Institute of

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Social Studies, I would like to thank you for the support and prayers throughout this project.

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Contents

Dedication iiiAcknowledgements ivList of Tables viiList of Tables viiList of Figures viiList of Maps viiList of Acronyms ixAbstract x

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 11.1 Introduction and Background 11.2 Methods of Data Collection and Limitations 31.3 Limitations 4

CHAPTER TWO: Conceptual Framework 52.1 Introduction 52.2 Biofuel Production the debate 52.3 Conceptualising Empowerment 72.4 Analysis 10

CHAPTER THREE: Contextualising the Research projects 113.1 Introduction 113.2 The nature of the Biofuel Policy in Zimbabwe 11

3.2.1 Economic Situation 123.3 The Nature of Plan International projects 133.4 Nature of NOCZIM projects 143.5 The Study area 14

CHAPTER FOUR: Analysis and Discussion of Find-ings 174.1 Introduction 174.2 Why the Jatropha project was thought to have a last-

ing impact on women. 174.3 Resources 184.4 Sense of Agency 20

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4.4.1 Decision making on how proceeds from Jatropha are used 20

4.4.2 Who makes decisions on family issues 224.5 Achievements 23

4.5.1 Non Production income empowerment 264.6 What went wrong? 27

4.6.1 Conflicts within the community 284.6.2 Distribution and Marketing 294.6.3 Macro – Politics 30

4.7 What does it mean for such projects: are such pro-jects useful even if they bring the focus on women? 31

4.8 Sustainability of such a project 324.9 Conclusion 33

CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusions 34References 1Appendices 4Appendix A: Semi – structured interview guide 4Appendix B: Field Pictures 7

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List of Tables

Table 1: who makes decisions on family issues in the households? 22

List of FiguresFigure 1: Who decides on how proceeds from Jatropha

can be used? 21

List of MapsMap 1: Map of Zimbabwe showing the study area viii

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Map 1: Map of Zimbabwe showing the study area

1 Map of Zimbabwe showing the area of study (Mutoko Dis-trict)

Accessed from (Google Images)

1http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.na - tionsonline.org/maps/zimbabwe_map.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nationson-line.org/oneworld/map/zimbabwe_map2.htm&usg=__kvy5I6jvKFZP0KKWO

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List of Acronyms

AGRITEX Agricultural Technical and Exten-sion Service

DA District Administrator

FGD Focus Group Discussion

GoZ Government of Zimbabwe

IMF International Monetary Fund

JCL Jatropha Carcus

NGO Non Governmental Organisation

NOCZIM National Oil Company of Zimbabwe

RBZ Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

USD United States Dollar

ZELA Zimbabwe Environmental Law Asso-ciation

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Abstract

Biofuel production has been gaining increased significance in most developing countries including Zimbabwe over the last five years. They are now seen as an alternative to fossil fuels. In Zimbabwe the production of Jatropha for biodiesel has been on the rise since 2005. This paper examines whether Jatropha production in Mutoko district’s Chindenga Village empowered women who were involved in the project. Women’s empowerment was not one of the ob-jectives of the project but it is noted that women were the ones who were working on the project and also they are more attracted to the by-products from Jatropha. However, there is no comprehensive policy which seeks to work with women and to empower them. In looking at whether women were empowered, the paper used Kabeer (2001)’s three dimensions of empowerment and also reviewed literature on empowerment. Findings from the study show some notable changes in the lives of the women who were involved in the projects. The study also reviewed that the project impacted on women in this community differently. The issue of power relations amongst the women in this community made a great differ-ence in terms of the impact of the project on the lives of the women. There were some women who were more em-powered than the others and some who disempowered oth-ers. The political and economic situation prevailing during the implementation of the project was also found to have contributed to the abrupt ending of the project.

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Relevance to Development StudiesWomen are one of the marginalised groups in most develop-ing countries. The way poverty hits on women is totally dif-ferent from the way it hits men. In most cases it is women who borne the burden of poverty because they are the ones responsible for the families whilst in most cases men mi-grate to urban areas to look for employment. There is need to study projects that women are involved in and see whether they are empowering women. Women empower-ment can potentially lead to poverty reduction at household level. On the whole women empowerment will lead to the development of the country as a whole.

KeywordsAgro-fuels/ Gender/Empowerment/ Bio-fuels / Jatropha/Re-sources/Agency/ Achievements/ Zimbabwe

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CHAPTER ONE: Introduction

1.1 Introduction and BackgroundJatropha Carcus. L (JCL) or physic nut has gained signific-ance in Zimbabwe over the past five years. It is now seen as an opportunity to increase the country’s energy independ-ence as well as reduce the negative influence of fossil fuels on the environment. Jatropha is also seen as a solution to improve rural lives and livelihoods since its production tar-gets rural farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of the coun-try. Known as Mujitimono or Umhlafuto in Zimbabwe’s Shona and Ndebele languages respectively, the plant can be grown on marginal lands and can be used in rural agro-industrial development. Oil can be pressed from the seed and used for bio-diesel and other by-products such as soap, candles and lubricants.

In 2005 the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) made a policy decision to have an import substitution biofuel pro-gramme. The policy gave the National Oil Company of Zim-babwe (NOCZIM) the mandate to run all biofuel projects in the country. NOCZIM is a government parastatal company that is responsible for procuring and managing the coun-try’s petroleum needs. The GoZ banned the export of Jatropha in its bid to extensively develop the plant and re-duce the need to import all fuel requirements for the coun-try and in the process save some foreign currency on fuel imports. The main objectives of the draft energy policy are to, ‘produce biodiesel equivalent to 10% of Zimbabwe’s fossil diesel imports per annum – this equate to about 100 million litres of biodiesel per annum from 120 000 hectares of plantations’ (NOCZIM, 2010:1).

The Jatropha project is being driven by political, eco-nomic and social factors (ibid). The political motivation to invest into biofuels was driven by the need for the country to overcome serious fossil fuel shortages. When the project was initiated in 2005, the economy lacked balance of pay-ment support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), therefore the need to initiate a biofuel programme. The eco-nomic motivation to invest into biofuels was driven by the continuous rise of fossil fuel prices on the international market. Also, ‘the economy of Zimbabwe depends on petro-leum imports, is particularly vulnerable to the price of oil on the international market’ (NOCZIM 2010: 2) hence, the

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need to initiate the Jatropha project so that it offsets the foreign currency demands. Lastly, the major social driver behind the Jatropha project was that, it would improve the lives and livelihoods of rural farmers through an alternative source of income. It was also projected that the venture would create employment for the rural households espe-cially those in the arid and semi –arid regions of the country (ibid).

In rural Zimbabwe it is “mostly” women who provide most of the labour at household level because they are usu-ally the ones who are left in the rural areas whilst men mi-grate to look for jobs in urban areas. According to Gandure (2009) it is mostly women who are involved in the produc-tion of biofuels, yet there is no policy that directly seeks or targets to work with women. Women work in the Jatropha projects yet it is men who are registered as owners of the projects. When it comes to selling the products it is again men who take the lead yet they are not involved in the pro-duction of the crop. Arguably, the project has got the poten-tial to empower women because it targets rural communit-ies in the marginal lands of Zimbabwe and seeks to enhance the livelihoods of people in these communities. Women con-stitute a greater percentage of people who live in the rural areas hence they stand a greater chance to benefit from the project.

Against this background, the current study intends to find out if Jatropha production is empowering rural women in Chindenga village. The paper seeks to find out the in-terests of women involved in the Jatropha projects and es-tablish their major motivating factors for implementing the project. The study will determine whether Jatropha projects are empowering women who are actively involved. Women empowerment is considered a vehicle to increase the pace of development in marginalised communities and for this reason gender issues take centre stage in development studies. The socially constructed roles between men and women tend to disadvantage women as they have limited access to productive resources. In most rural communities, men make the major decisions at the household level, in-cluding how resources are allocated, and often suppress women’s decision making power.

The main objective of the research is to find out if Jatropha production empowers rural women in Mutoko dis-trict’s Chindenga Village. Given that it is women who are mostly involved in the Jatropha project and that they find the by-products more attractive. The main research ques-

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tion that this research seeks to answer is: Does the Jatropha project empower rural women in Chindenga Vil-lage, Zimbabwe? In answering this question, the following sub- research questions were used: To what extent do wo-men have access to means of production such as land in Chindenga village? What are the terms of incorporation for women in the Jatropha project? What has been the effect of Jatropha production on women in terms of decision making and work burden? Lastly, what has been the difference in terms of impact between the different classes of women in-volved in the project?

Kabeer (2001)’s three dimensions of empowerment were used to analyse whether there have been changes in the lives of the women since the inception of the project in Chindenga village. According to Kabeer, ‘one way of think-ing about power is in terms of the ability to make choices’ (2001:18). Therefore she gives three dimensions in which people can exercise choices which are, ‘resources, agency and achievements’ (ibid). According to her if one is able to exercise these choices then they are empowered. In addi-tion, the study engaged in different literature on empower-ment. This was necessary in analysing the politics that hap-pen locally that may affect women of different economic status in the community. The research technique that was used was qualitative in nature. Methods such as inter-views, focus group discussion (FGD) and observation were used. More on the methodology will be looked at in depth the following section.

The paper will be structured as follows: Section 1.2 gives the methods of data collection and limitations. Chapter 2 presents the Conceptual framework that will be used to analyse the data. Chapter 3 gives the context of the research. Chapter 4 discusses the findings as well as ana-lyse the data presented and lastly Chapter 5 gives conclu-sions to the issues discussed in this paper.

1.2 Methods of Data Collection and Limita-tionsIn order to find answers to the questions raised in the pre-ceding section, the research technique that was used was qualitative in nature. The researcher utilized both second-ary and primary sources of data in the research. The field study was conducted in Mutoko district’s Chindenga village in rural Zimbabwe. Chindenga village was chosen because

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it is an area where Jatropha has been grown since time im-memorial it was used as hedge around household gardens. The community was considered to be better placed in terms of women’s empowerment since projects have been going on for some time in that locality.

As far as the secondary data was concerned relevant lit-erature was reviewed, information was gathered from journal articles, the energy draft policy, organisational and governmental reports. These helped in formulating the background of the research as well as to build on the con-ceptual framework which will be used to analyse data in the paper

To gather primary data, a fieldwork study was under-taken from July 18th to August 15th 2010 in Mutoko District’s Chindenga village, Zimbabwe. Forty interviews were car-ried out, thirty-two with women involved in the Jatropha project and eight with women who are not involved in the project. This was done in order to get the perspective of those not involved and the impact on lives of women in-volved. The semi-structured in-depth interviews were chosen because they are very helpful in getting sensitive in-formation from respondents. Laws et al., argue that inter-views are very useful if the information being reviewed is sensitive, ‘if the issue is sensitive, and people may not be able to speak freely in groups.’ (2003: 286) In addition the interview method was also used to interview officers from organisations such as Plan International, NOCZIM, Finealt and Ministry of Energy and Power Development

In order to select interviewees, firstly, a focus group dis-cussion was conducted. The group was made up of nine wo-men, with the number purposively chosen to keep discus-sions interactive and manageable. The main purpose of the FGD was to gather information on whether Jatropha pro-jects were being done in the area and to find out who were mostly involved in the Jatropha projects. Laws et al. high-light that FGDs are used when one, ‘needs guidance in set-ting a framework for some larger – scale research about what people see as the issues to them.’ (2003:299).

The snowball method was used to contact the respond-ents for the interviews. It started with a woman who was involved in the FGD and then from there identified others. The snowball method was considered to be the best be-cause people from this community could easily identify with one another and they knew where each other stay and how they were progressing with their projects. They also knew

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who was available at home at that moment the interviews were conducted, this actually saved time.

Moreover, observation was used throughout the whole field study. This was helpful because one could essentially pick up the link of what was being said in the interviews and what was observable on the ground. In most cases it is not enough to rely on what you hear from respondents be-cause at times people tend to protect themselves and hide other very important issues that could be very important for the research.

To uphold the principle of confidentiality, the study will not make reference to the original names of the persons in-terviewed in this paper.

1.3 LimitationsThis study has some limitations. One major issue is that the research was conducted outside the agriculture season. Some of the women who could have been selected as re-spondents were not in the community having visited their relatives in the different parts of the country. However it was fortunate that from the different groups in the com-munity the researcher was able to find some respondents.

Another limitation was that the research was done dur-ing the constitution making outreach process in Zimbabwe. This was a process where outreach teams where moving around communities in Zimbabwe gathering views for a new constitution. The three main political parties then ran programmes to sensitize their supporters on what issues to point out for inclusion in the new constitution. It was very sensitive to discuss some issues especially issues to do with access to land because they were some of the issues that were being debated in the draft Constitution. The issue of land evokes mixed emotions in Zimbabwe and the re-searcher could have easily been mistaken for being a polit-ical agent. Mutoko district is a politically sensitive area and, one has to be really cautious of what to say or ask in the communities. However, the researcher was able to get most of the required information because the whole field study was done in the company of an Agriculture Technical and Extension Service officer (AREX). Furthermore, the District Administrator (DA) of the area had seen all the questions that were going to be discussed in the community.

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CHAPTER TWO: Conceptual Frame-work

2.1 IntroductionThis chapter reviews the literature and discusses some of the important debates in understanding biofuel production and women’s empowerment. The framework will therefore be based on the different conceptualisations of empower-ment. In order to understand whether women were em-powered by the Jatropha project, the analysis will draw on the various conceptualisations of empowerment but will mainly draw on the three dimensions of empowerment by Kabeer (2001). This analysis is crucial because it raises questions on whether empowerment is possible especially when projects aim to empower a certain group of people with different economic status in a particular community. It must be noted that it was not one of the objectives of the project to empower women, but it is women who are inter-ested in the project, as well as working on the project. Hence it had the potential to empower women in Mutoko district’s Chindenga village.

2.2 Biofuel Production the debateBiofuel production has attracted a great deal of debate in development studies over the last two decades. It is seen by many as a substitute to fossil fuels hence many countries have resorted to biofuel production. However the produc-tion of biofuels has not been just received by all with open hands. There is a strong debate around the production of biofuels. On the one hand are those who see biofuel produc-tion as good for development. For example commentators from the corporate sector are positive about the production of biofuels, for instance, Mathews argues for the integration of biofuel production with already existing agriculture, ‘thereby raising yields overall and facilitating the feeding of an expanded population in a sustainable fashion’ (2009:614). On the other hand are those that see biofuel production as essentially bad for development particularly environmentalists. They argue against the production of biofuels because they say that they are harmful to the envir-

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onment. White and Dasgupta arguing from a political eco-nomy approach highlight that, ‘Agrofuels feedstock produc-tion, at least in its first-generation form, is accelerating rather than slowing down global warming’ (2010:4). Clancy argues that, ‘there are strong concerns voiced that biofuels will result in increased hunger as tropical crops are diver-ted away from household food utilisation in the South to ‘feed’ the cars of households in the North’ (2008:419). Also there are those who see biofuel production as a different form of renewable energy but at the same time see the neg-ative and positive aspects of the production of biofuels. For example organisations such as the Food Agriculture Organ-isation (FAO) see the potential that biofuels have but at the same they also see that biofuel production can compromise on food security. Pingali et al. (2008) highlight that there is nothing special about the use of land for non-food crops as this is the same with the production of any other cash crop.

In this study the emphasis will be on Jatropha which is one of the biomass used in biofuel production. According to Hunsberger, Jatropha is, ‘a small tree that produces oily seeds, Jatropha proponents champion its supposed ability to grow in semi-arid areas that are not considered arable, these claims have supported a perception that Jatropha could represent a ‘sustainable’ means of producing biofuels’ (2010:940). In Zimbabwe, biofuel production has not yet progressed into massive processing of Jatropha into biod-iesel. The projects are still in their early stages hence there is not yet much literature on the impact of biofuel produc-tion. Most of the debates so far in the literature centre on land and environmental issues. Mtisi and Makore (2010) ar-gue that the land tenure system in Zimbabwe has great im-plications in the production of biofuels since almost all the land in the rural areas belongs to the government. They highlight that, ‘land tenure system in Zimbabwe has great implications for biofuel crop production as the production of feedstock for biodiesel relies on conversion of agricul-tural land or marginal land for growing Jatropha and sugar cane at both the communal and commercial level’ (Mtisi and Makore,2010:14). The same is argued by Gandure (2009) in his study on the roles of women in Jatropha pro-jects. Mujeyi also highlights that, ‘the size of arable land that a farmer possesses has a negative and significant rela-tionship with the probability of adopting commercial utiliza-tion of Jatropha’ (2009:45). The land issue is mentioned in most of the literature on biofuel production in Zimbabwe, it is a critical issue as land is one of the most important re-sources in biofuel production and agriculture as whole.

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On environmental sustainability Tigere et al. (2006) in their study on the potential of Jatropha Curcas in improving livelihoods in Zimbabwe argue that Jatropha helps in con-trolling soil erosion as well as rehabilitation of degraded lands, this is also clearly brought out in a study by Gandure (2009). However, there are no known specific cases where soil erosion has been controlled or where degraded lands were rehabilitated in their studies.

In the literature review above, there are no issues that have to do with Jatropha production and women empower-ment. There seems to be more focus on the land and envir-onmental issues in relation to biofuel production. Gandure (2009) in his study on women’s roles in Jatropha production focuses on the roles of women in Jatropha production. How-ever, the study does not look at whether Jatropha produc-tion empowers women. This study, therefore, seeks to ex-plore whether Jatropha production has in any way em-powered rural women in Mutoko district’s Chindenga vil-lage. It also sets to explore the political economy of em-powerment in trying to understand whether the project is empowering or disempowering to these women.

Jatropha production can potentially empower rural wo-men because it is women who are mostly involved in Jatropha production and also women are more attracted to the project because of the by-products. Tigere et al. high-light that, ‘since the JCL shrub has been declared the spe-cific crop, this has empowered the female smallholder farm-ers who can now generate household income from the sales of seed and JCL seed cake. This has to some extent ad-dressed gender equity in terms of income generation.’(2006:7). In the same line Gandure argues that, ‘the participation of women is most visible in farming activ-ities, as they are considered a reliable source of labour at the household level or through women’s groups’ (2009:44).

2.3 Conceptualising EmpowermentEmpowerment is a broad concept which cannot be easily defined and explained. This was aptly stated by Shetty when she says, ‘empowerment is like obscenity, you don’t know how to define it but you know it when you see it’ (1991:8). Longwe highlights that empowerment is the most central issue in the gender studies that helps , ‘to enable women to take an equal place with men and to participate equally in the development process in order to achieve con-

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trol over the factors of production on equal basis with men’ (1991:150).Different organisations have got different indicators for em-powerment. As argued by Fonderson:

World Bank, tend to see women’s active participation in the market economy as a sign of empowerment, most Non Gov-ernmental Organisations (NGOs), women’s advocates and members of the donor community believe an increase in wo-men’s income enables them to provide for the family, reduces dependence on their husbands, and in turn, fosters self es-teem and greater participation in the household decision –making. Although these various conceptualisations emphas-ize different aspect(s) of empowerment, they nevertheless share one common feature – the belief that empowerment is above all a slow and dynamic process of women’s struggle to gain power. (2002:184).

Agarwal defines empowerment as, ‘a process that enhances the ability of disadvantaged (“powerless”) individuals or groups to challenge and change (in their favour) existing power relations that place them in subordinate economic, social and political positions’ (1996:276). She also mentions that these changes can happen in groups or movements, she highlights access to resources as a vital way to em-power women, ‘entitling women with land could empower them economically, as well as strengthen their ability to challenge social and political gender inequalities’ (ibid). The emphasis is that for rural women to be empowered they should have access to land because it gives them more voice and, without land titles women are subject to abuse by their husbands. She highlights that, ‘land rights can also improve the treatment a woman receives from other family members by strengthening their bargaining power’ (ibid: 277). The main emphasis is that for women to be em-powered there must be a change in the power relations that have traditionally placed women in weak positions, that is women have to be in a position where they can freely make decisions without fearing abuse from their husbands. Her argument is in line with Kabeer (2001) who argues access to resources and agency as part of the dimensions of em-powerment that need to be changed for one to be em-powered. She mentions that access to resources is condi-tioned by the rules, norms and practices therefore until there is some change in the structure then women cannot be empowered. However, Mahmood (2003) looking at the portrayal of third world women, challenges their portrayal as passive beings. She challenges the liberal idea that being free is linked to agency by Kabeer (2001). She questions the

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definition of agency and asks who defines what self actual-isation really is, and goes on to question what development is.

Rai (2002) looking at the quota debate in India sees the term empowerment as a discourse that in real sense does not intend to empower but to seduce people to think they can be empowered. She argues that, ‘the discourse of em-powerment is not really a discourse of power. It addresses audiences as if they were all potential converts to the cause. Further there is a tendency to homogenize the actors engaged in the struggles for empowerment, 'The people’, ‘women’, are presented without sufficient differentiation.’ (2002:135) Empowerment is a concept that has gained so much importance in development projects, it looks at the beneficiaries as if there are no differences yet in the study by Rai (2002) on quota system in India it is clear that the issue of class tends to play a role, ‘the issue of class is at the heart of the process of engendering development’ (ibid).Also arguing on the impact of class on issues of em-powerment Hoskyns and Rai argue that, ‘the privileging of gender over class, together with the grip of the political parties on access to political system, results in a profile of women representatives which in turn raises issues about accountability’ (1998:346). In this case it was highlighted that mostly influential women, those from better caste and also those from known families are the ones who got the po-sitions in government. This actually raises questions whether projects that seek to empower women really mean to empower women at all. The issue of power relations play a crucial role in such projects to such an extent that instead of the whole group being empowered it is only those who hold powerful positions who tend to benefit more than the rest. ‘The question of empowerment cannot be disassoci-ated from the question of relations of power within different socio-political systems’ (ibid: 145).

Staudt also argues that, ‘Large-scale, macro level struc-tures have set the stage that disempower people, and yet staff from some of those structures revisit the stage with empowerment language’ (2002:97). According to her argu-ment such processes do not empower because marginalised groups do not acquire the power they need to be able to shift power relations. These macro level structures such as governments or multi –lateral and bilateral organisations involved in funding projects play a very important role. In most cases they have their own interests to protect yet they use the term ‘empowerment’ to draw marginalised people

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to their activities. In the same line Rao and Kelleher posit that, ‘Organisational structures tend to reinforce the power of a few, who, for the most part are unwilling to give up the privileges of power. Even when power is shared, decision making remains in the hands of a small number of senior people.’(2005:58). these arguments are very important in understanding whether women in Chindenga village are be-ing empowered. It moves from looking at what women ought to have in order to be empowered to what really takes place in the organisations that bring projects to the marginalised.

This research paper will zero in on Kabeer (2001)’s 3 di-mensions of empowerment, with some insights drawn from other scholars. To see whether a program has empowered or disempowered people it can be seen through different dimensions. This is what Kabeer (2001:19) refers as the 3 dimensions of empowerment. The dimensions include: Re-sources, Agency and Achievements. According to Kabeer, ‘empowerment refers to the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them’ (ibid).These changes can therefore be thought of in terms of the three dimensions. It is against these dimensions that this research will analyse the data. Also different conceptualisations of empowerment will be used.

According to Kabeer (2001) the three dimensions are in-terrelated in such a way that a change in one contributes a change in the other, ‘the achievements of a particular mo-ment translated into enhanced resources or agency, hence capacity for making choices, at a later moment’ (Kabeer, 2001: 19) Resources, ‘which form the conditions under which choices can be made’ (ibid) is one of the dimensions. According to Kabeer (2001:19) resources can be, ‘material, social or human’. Resources refer to more than physical/ma-terial resources but go further to look at the social re-sources that is the kind of networks and connections that surrounds a person’s life and also human resources which involves the knowledge as well as skills that individuals have. The way resources are distributed and the different kind of relationships that exist are very important as far as empowerment is concerned, ‘these rules, norms and prac-tices give some actors authority over others in determining the principles of distribution and exchange within that sphere’ (Kabeer ,2001:20). The issue of different power di-mensions in communities tend to make powerful actors be-nefit more. Kabeer posits that, ‘ the terms on which people

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gain access to resources are as important as the resources themselves when issues of empowerment is considered em-powerment entails a change in terms on which resources are acquired as much as an increase in access to resources’ (ibid).

Agency, the other dimension of empowerment, it is ‘the heart of the process by which choices are made’ (Kabeer, 2001: 19). It can be defined as, ‘the ability to define one’s goals and act upon them. Agency is more than observable action; it also encompasses the meaning, motivation and purpose which individuals bring to their activity, their sense of agency, or ‘the power within’’ (Kabeer, 2001: 21). Ac-cording to Kabeer (2001) agency can be both negative and positive. Positive in the sense of the ‘power to’ that is, ‘people’s capacity to define their own life choices and pur-sue their own goals, even in the face of opposition from oth-ers’ and negative in the sense of ‘power over’ that is, ‘the capacity of an actor or category of actors to override the agency of others, for instance through the use of violence, coercion, and threat’ (Kabeer, 2010: 19). However, she also argues that power can also be exercised without agency, ‘the norms and rules governing social behaviour tend to en-sure that certain outcomes are reproduced without any ap-parent agency’ (ibid).

Achievements ‘are the outcomes of the choices’ they constitute the other dimension of empowerment (ibid). ‘ Re-sources and agency together constitute what Sen refers to as capabilities, the potential that people have for living the lives they want, of achieving valued ways of ‘being and do-ing’’ (Kabeer, 2001:21). These ways of ‘being and doing’ are what is valued by people in a particular place or context. ‘Where failure to achieve valued ways of ‘being and doing’ can be traced to laziness, then the issue of power is not rel-evant. When, however, the failure to achieve reflects asym-metries in the underlying distribution of capabilities, it can be taken as a manifestation of disempowerment’ (ibid)

The emergency of Jatropha has been gaining popularity in most developing countries including Zimbabwe. Thus, some scholars perceive Jatropha production and biofuel production in general as a way of improving the livelihoods of rural people, of which women constitute the greatest per-centage of people living in the rural areas and are the ones who are more involved in Jatropha production. This frame-work will be used to analyse whether the Jatropha project has empowered rural women or not. However, this research although focusing on Kabeer (2001)’s 3 dimensions of em-

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powerment it is not ignorant of the fact that there is more to empowerment. According to Parpart et al,

Empowerment can also be seen as an outcome that can be measured against expected accomplishments. Attempts to measure outcomes are important as a means for keeping de-velopment practitioners and policy – makers honest. At the same time, we caution against too ready assumptions that the achievements of stated goals is proof of individual or group empowerment. (2002:4).

2.4 AnalysisThis paper looks at whether women have got access to re-sources, are able to make decisions about their own activit-ies both at household level and outside the household and also looks at the political economy of empowerment, that is, seeing whether the issue of different power relations amongst the women in the community has got any con-sequences as far as empowerment is concerned.

The analysis is guided by the three dimensions of em-powerment by Kabeer (2001). It sees whether all the dimen-sions (resources, agency and achievements) are apparent in the lives of the women involved in the project. However, as mentioned by (Parpart et al, 2002: 4), issues of empower-ment go further than measuring the stated goals. The ana-lysis will also be guided by the different conceptualisations of empowerment discussed in the literature review above.

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CHAPTER THREE: Contextualising the Research projects

3.1 IntroductionThis Chapter discusses the background of the Jatropha pro-ject in Zimbabwe. It looks at the nature of the biofuel policy and at the different organisations that worked in Mutoko, how they were working with the communities and sees whether this empowered or disempowered the rural women in the locality. The chapter also looks at the characteristics of the study area as well as the situation of the women in Chindenga village. It seeks to give background to the next chapter.

3.2 The nature of the Biofuel Policy in Zimb-abwe As mentioned earlier according to NOCZIM ‘the biofuel policy is being driven by political, economic and social drivers’ (2010:1). Although all these factors inform the draft Energy Policy and some work on Jatropha production is already underway, the policy is still in the draft form it has not yet been published as a national policy hence it cannot be relied on as a comprehensive policy to promote biofuels. However, all the principles were presented as the cabinet white paper on the principles for biofuels development in 2007. Mtisi and Makore highlight that:

The cabinet White paper on the principles for biofuels devel-opment and use in Zimbabwe that was presented to cabinet by the Minister of Energy and Power Development on 18 December 2007 is the only policy document that gives insight into government’s intentions on the production, distribution and marketing of biofuels in Zimbabwe (2010:9). Poor relations between the GoZ and its western allies

led to the initiation of biofuel production, ‘As the situation further deteriorated the government reasoned that in order to beat the fuel shortages caused by “economic sanctions” they should produce biofuels’ (Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), 2010:8). The GoZ without a proper plan responded to the fuel problem by embarking on a hur-ried biodiesel feedstock programme, where they sought to plant Jatropha Curcas in all the 10 provinces of the country. The projects were launched in 2005 in the Mutoko district

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where they also began to construct a biofuel plant to pro-cess the biodiesel. However, all this was done without a substantive biofuel policy in place. This was clearly put by ZELA:

This was done in the absence of any comprehensive and spe-cific national policy and legal framework as well as invest-ment in thorough research on biofuels. The Minister of En-ergy and Power Development only presented to Cabinet a white paper on “Principles for biofuels development and use” which stated government position and direction in the devel-opment of biofuels. (ibid)The Cabinet white paper highlights that one of the in-

tentions of the government was to take into account the in-terests of rural communities. The government expressed that people from the communal areas could form groups which will help them provide more feedstock for biofuels production. The principles also set categories of farmers who are targeted by the project that is communal and small scale farmers who have 5 hectares of land and above. In most communal areas in Zimbabwe the households do not have access to more than 5 hectares of land yet the project clearly highlights that it intends to work with communal areas that have access to 5 hectares. This was something that was a misplaced because that category of communal households with access to 5 hectares of land rarely exists in Zimbabwe. However, this arrangement tends to exclude most of the communal farmers especially women who are mostly involved in Jatropha production because in most cases they do not have access to 5 hectares of land. Clancy argues that, ‘where women do exercise control over land, they face barriers to participation in new initiatives requir-ing significant levels of investment since they have diffi-culties accessing credit, often lacking title to land, livestock or other property required as collateral for loans’ (2008:422) In most cases they are only supported with tech-nical expertise and seedlings only. This then does not take the women through the whole empowerment process; it of-fers half of what is required. Kabeer (2001) highlights that empowerment is a “process” and this was also reinstated by Parpart et al. , ‘empowerment is both a process and an out-come is a process in that it is fluid, often unpredictable, and requires attention to the specificities of struggle over time and place’ (2002:4). The draft policy does not specify sup-porting women in the communal areas yet from the studies conducted Gandure (2009) it was found that women are the ones who are more involved in Jatropha production.

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3.2.1 Economic SituationThe project was implemented during a decade when the country was going through a rough economic crisis. It was challenging for most organisations to keep running their projects because of the escalating inflation. According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, ‘The hyperinflation that characterized Zimbabwe’s economy for almost a decade seriously impacted on the country’s payment systems, par-ticularly in 2008’ (RBZ, 2009:2). In June 2009 the Bank in-troduced a multi currency payment system, ‘the multicur-rency payment system allows trade to be completed using major currencies’ (ibid). This affected most projects that were already running including the Jatropha project. The same Bank (RBZ) was funding the Jatropha project and had constraints in accessing the foreign currency that was needed in the project. Therefore, the project was put on hold because of lack of funds needed to keep the project running.

3.3 The Nature of Plan International projects

Plan International is an NGO that is working in Mutoko dis-trict in the Chindenga ward. It has different kinds of pro-jects currently running in the area. Among the projects be-ing done by this organisation is the Jatropha project. Ac-cording to the officer interviewed, the project was started after having learnt from what was being done in Binga an area in the Matabeleland province in the South of Zimb-abwe where Jatropha is grown extensively. The project was mainly aimed at empowering communities in the Mutoko District.

Jatropha is a multipurpose and drought tolerant plant which produces oil that can be used for various purposes including bio-diesel. This was clearly highlighted by Mujeyi when he says, ‘Jatropha is a multipurpose and drought- res-istant large shrub the shelled seeds contain (35% by weight) viscous oil (SIRDC, 1998), which can be used for the manufacturing of candles and soap, in the cosmetic in-dustry’ (2009:38). These by-products can be a catalyst to enable rural women to alleviate poverty and also to em-power themselves. Thus Plan International works towards empowering households, through the by- product projects.

Plan international provides the communities with work-shops on how by-products can be made from Jatropha. Ac-

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cording to Kabeer (2001) this actually enhanced the skills of the women because they were capacitated to do what they previously could not do such as making the by-products. The organisation also distributed nine oil pressing machines that were put at various central points in the community for use by households interested in the projects. The machines could freely be used by anyone involved in the project. Trainings and also the machinery were provided by Plan International to the households involved in the project , this is what Kabeer( 2001) refers to as ‘re-sources’ one of the dimensions of empowerment.

The organisation does not give the women inputs to make the soap or candles, all they give is the technical know-how of making these by-products. The fact that wo-men are not given inputs to start the project in some sense can be argued to be disempowering, because most of them failed to achieve their goals due to lack of access to the re-quired inputs. Kabeer argues that, ‘the failure to achieve reflects asymmetries in the underlying distribution of cap-abilities, it can be taken as a manifestation of disempower-ment’ (2001:22) Also it does not go further to link the pro-ducers with markets. According to the officer,

All we seek to do is to empower these communities us-ing resources that are locally produced, but they have to look for their own inputs as well as markets. We were only able to provide 9 oil pump machines as well as workshops on how to make the by-products. We believe that if we continue to give them everything, they will be-come depended and the project will not be sustainable’ (Mr Gudo, personal Interview in Mutoko, 16/07/10).Plan International has since stopped working on the

Jatropha project because, according to the officer, The organisation is avoiding to clash with the national objective which seeks to produce Jatropha for biofuel production (Mr Gudo, Personal Interview in Mutoko, 16/07/2010).

3.4 Nature of NOCZIM projects

Biofuels are now seen as a substitute to fossil fuels, and, therefore, for countries like Zimbabwe which rely on im-porting fuel, biofuel production comes as an opportunity for

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them to increase their energy independence. Therefore, the GoZ tasked NOCZIM to run all the biofuel projects in Zimb-abwe. From the interviews conducted with NOCZIM it was reviewed that,

By the end of 2009 we had established about one hun-dred and twenty three (123) hectares of Jatropha in Mu-toko district. Nation wide we have established three thousand three hundred and thirty seven hectares (3337). Also, we have distributed forty one million seed-lings nation wide for hedges around gardens or homes. (Mr Tsuro, personal interview in Harare, 16/08/10). This is still far from the objectives that were set by

NOCZIM at the beginning of the project. Their objective was to, ‘produce biodiesel equivalent to 10% of Zimbabwe’s fossil diesel imports per annum – this equate to about 100 million litres of biodiesel per annum from 120 000 hectares of plantations’ (NOCZIM, 2010:1).

NOCZIM works with communal farmers through con-tract farming for the production of Jatropha. The parastatal provides tillaging as well as inputs that are required by the farmers to plant Jatropha. However, in the Chindenga ward, NOCZIM does not contract any farmers because households do not have access to 5 hectares of land. It only gives tech-nical assistance and seedlings to farmers who are inter-ested in the project.

The main role that NOCZIM plays in the area is to buy Jatropha seeds from farmers and ideally process the bio-diesel. According to the officer interviewed,

We buy Jatropha seed at US$ 150 per tonne, so it is about US$15c per kilogram. Most of the communal farmers do not want to sell the seeds to us because they say the money is too little. However at the moment we have stopped purchasing the seeds(Mr Tsuro 2010, per-sonal interview in Harare 16/08/10). NOCZIM has been buying the seeds from the farmers

since the initiation of the by-fuel project in 2005.However, up to date it has not yet started processing biodiesel be-cause the biomass is still little. Therefore, they just buy the Jatropha and give it to other growers who they contract. At present NOCZIM has stopped expanding the project due to financial constraints and is focusing on working with pro-jects that they already have.

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3.5 The Study areaThe study looked at the Jatropha project in Chindenga Vil-lage of Mutoko in the Mashonaland province of Zimbabwe. According to Berkvens, ‘Mutoko has a semi arid- climate with an average annual precipitation of 650mm. Drought spells occur frequently, agriculture production in Mutoko is mainly rain fed and the farming system mixed’ (1997:5). In Mutoko, family is the main source of labour and it is mostly women who are involved in agricultural work. Cousins et al. from their research in Mutoko district found that, ‘Men function as bread winners on the basis of some form of non-agricultural employment. Women may regard themselves as housewives with control over the household’s assets and re-sponsibility for subsistence tasks and the education of chil-dren.’ (1992: 14).

Most men from this communal area migrate to seek em-ployment either in urban areas or commercial farms. These are some of the ways in which most households in this com-munity enhance their livelihoods since agriculture is not highly productive through out the year because of the low rainfall patterns and also lack of agriculture equipment to use for agricultural purposes. Price and Campbell highlight that, ‘in case of reasonable rainfall, the most important source of income is sales of dry land crops, which accounts for about 30% of average annual income. Other important income sources are non-formal and casual work, remit-tances from town and vegetables sales’ (1998:210)

Jatropha has been grown in Mutoko since time imme-morial and was never recognised as an important crop until the 1970s. It was used as a form of hedge around the household gardens aimed at keeping animals and human beings away. Gandure highlights that, ‘the deliberate ex-ploration of Jatropha as a potential source of fuel began in the late 1970s and intensified in the 1980s’ (2009:42). One of the major agricultural activities that most households in Mutoko have always been involved in is the growing of ve-getables and sale at markets in Harare, the main capital city, approximately 250 kilometres from Mutoko. In fact, Mutoko is largely known for its horticultural produces in Zi-mbabwe. The area has got an advantage of some streams along some mountains which supply water for horticulture for the greater part of the year.

In Mutoko district, agriculture is not regarded as a full-time occupation because it does not offer enough means for earning a living for the households, hence the involvement of most households in diversified livelihoods. As a result,

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most households in the area engage in multiple activities in order to earn a living. Households in Mutoko district grow other food crops such as maize and sorghum but mainly for subsistence and they mainly grow these crops during the rainfall season.

With the introduction of Jatropha most households in Chindenga village who have the plant were involved in the project. However, the lack of access to land is one critical factor that makes some households not to participate in Jatropha production because for a household to be part of the out grower scheme they need to have access to land. Cromwell and van Oosterhout in their study conducted in Mutoko district noted that, ‘land is allocated to families by traditional authorities (chiefs) and means holding size is 2.5ha, although this varies widely’ (2000:220). The same study showed that land is owned by the households al-though in most cases the men are the heads of households and it is registered in their names. Also they highlighted that, ‘60% of the people involved actively in farming the land are women, although or just over 20% of households are formally or informally headed by women’ (ibid).

Women in this area get more involved in agriculture be-cause most men migrate to urban areas hence they are the ones who will be left to produce food for the household. Also as mentioned by Berkvens, ‘Men, traditionally are re-sponsible for cattle rather than crops, may feel reluctant to become farmers given that farming is considered a female activity.’(1997:15). This is not to say that men in this com-munity are not involved in agriculture, but to emphasise why women end up involved in Jatropha production more than men.

However, not all households in Chindenga village are involved in Jatropha production. In most cases it is because they do not have access to land and hence they cannot par-ticipate in Jatropha production. NOCZIM targets house-holds who have access to land as clearly mentioned above. Also households in Chindenga village are involved in nu-merous ways of making a living.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Analysis and Dis-cussion of Findings

4.1 IntroductionThis chapter discusses findings regarding the perceptions and perspectives of beneficiaries and organisations on how empowering Jatropha production is to those involved in the projects. The discussion will be premised on the study ob-jective and key research questions. The chapter starts by giving reasons why this project was thought to have a last-ing impact on women yet it never intended to empower wo-men specifically. Drawing on the three dimensions of em-powerment by Kabeer (2001) analysis and discussion is centred on three main dimensions–Resources, Agency and Achievements and also reference will be made to key liter-atures discussed in chapter 2. The paper will go on to look at some issues of power relations that existed in the com-munity – taking into account that communities are not ho-mogeneous entities with people who have the same in-terests. Also a reflection on the political interests that were at play and some of the economic challenges that the coun-try was undergoing are also analysed. The concluding part of the chapter goes on to give the researcher’s perspective on the meaning of projects such as this. It also discusses the usefulness and sustainability of such projects.

4.2 Why the Jatropha project was thought to have a lasting impact on women.In most communal areas in Zimbabwe the family is the main source of labour and it is “mostly” women who provide labour in as far as agriculture is concerned. Accord-ing to Bulow and Sorensen ‘family labour particularly that of wives is crucial to the majority of tea farmers’ (1993:42) this was found out in their study on contract farming in Zi-mbabwe, also as reinstated by Pankhurst ‘most of the work has to be done in hot weather and through the ‘hungriest’ time of the year, and most labour is provided by women’ (1991:614). This is also the same for Jatropha production - women are more involved in the projects than men. Tigere et al. in their study on the potential of Jatropha Curcas in improving smallholder farmer’s livelihood in Zimbabwe found out that it is women who are mostly being em-

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powered by the projects because they are the ones who par-ticipate more, ‘this has empowered the female smallholder farmers who can now generate extra household income from the sales of seed and Jatropha seedcake’ (2006:7).

Most men in Zimbabwe are not interested in Jatropha production because it offers low returns and it takes long to get the returns therefore they prefer to engage in other activities to sustain their livelihoods. Gandure mentions three main reasons why women are the ones, who are mainly involved in these projects,

First, because of their role in the households which includes cooking, cleaning, and providing care and support, the bene-fits derived from by-products of Jatropha – growing (including paraffin, soap and glycerine)make the activity very attractive to women. Second, because benefits from Jatropha accrue over a period of time, like many other projects, women have the necessary high level of patience and reliability. Third, the generally low levels of return realized from these by-products make them less attractive. (2009:45) It is against these reasons that the project was assumed

to have a lasting impact on women. Women’s agency to be involved in the project would probably be high because it is a project that is attractive to them. Also by men not being interested in the project it would look like second best to women but at the same time give women the opportunity to be empowered without them having to face too much com-petition from men.

In many societies culturally defined roles have played a significant role in preventing women from enjoying benefits that the industrial world offers even though women play a significant role in the utilization of natural resources. In most traditional societies women are portrayed as the ones who do all the household work whilst men are responsible for work outside the home and are seen as owners of all re-sources and the ones who can derive all the economic bene-fits from the available resources. According to Clancy, ‘Poverty has a distinct gender dimension in the sense that poverty is experienced differently by women and men and their responses are different, women and men have differ-ent degrees of access and control over land and natural re-sources, they also have different roles, responsibilities, rights and obligations which define the relationship between women and men in a household’ (2008:422). The burden of poverty is still borne by women therefore it is very critical and important to empower women and also to include them in production processes because in most cases

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women are often left out and this hampers their ability to move forward in all sectors.

4.3 ResourcesIn the study area women often do not own any assets it is usually the men who are the owners of virtually all assets. The research carried out for this paper revealed that all households in the community have got access to land which is half a hectare. Also all the households do not have legal rights, the land is under communal ownership. This is what Mtisi and Makore (2010) argue that it can be a challenge for farmers to join the project. Farmers in the community are actually not contracted because they do not have the hectares of land that are required. This is highlighted in the technical report by NOCZIM, that all households with less than 5 hectares do not get the tillaging support. (NOCZIM 2010:2).

On registration of the land most households mentioned that it is the husband’s name that is registered. Even for the female headed households (widows) that were inter-viewed they mentioned that they are still using land in their late husband’s names. In Zimbabwe land ownership tends to favour men than women although this is slowly changing. The widows interviewed highlighted that it is difficult to change the name even after the husband has died. One widow mentioned that,

It is very difficult to change names, I can never put that land in my name if I do that I risk loosing the land. It is better to continue using my late husband’s name (Rudo, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 21/07/10)This lack of proper documentation makes women to be

excluded in development projects because when projects come in the area that have the potential to benefit women, they may at the end of day fail to benefit because they will not be having access to the required resources. Kabeer highlights that, ‘resources form the condition under which one can make choices’ (2001:19) Hence by lacking access to resources one is disempowered because they cannot make choices.

Although it was revealed that land is registered in the names of the men. It also came out clearly that 56% of the women interviewed made decisions about the household land. In Mutoko agriculture is seen as work for women. It was highlighted that it is mainly women who are involved in

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agriculture projects hence they have more control over what to plant at household level. This is also highlighted by Berkvens ‘men function as bread winners on the basis of some form of non-agricultural employment. Women may re-gard themselves as housewives with control over the house-hold’s assets and responsibility for subsistence tasks and the education of children. (1997: 14).

In addition, on the terms of incorporation it was re-vealed that women in this community were free to particip-ate in Jatropha projects. It was also revealed by most of the women that Jatropha production is regarded as a project for women and men were not even interested in the project. This is also mentioned by Gandure when she says, ‘the pro-gramme is largely driven by women small-holder farmers, but their roles have not been carefully studied nor docu-mented’ (2009:45). Longwe (1991) mentions participation as one of the highest levels of empowerment as far as em-powerment is concerned. Hence by the women being able to freely participate in these projects it increases their power to make decisions. Also, Kabeer (2001) mentions that access - to be able to freely participate in projects increases choices for women which will then lead to empowerment.

In addition, the interviewed women also mentioned that since the inception of Jatropha production they had intensi-fied their production, by planting more hedges even around their houses. Whilst a few women mentioned that they had just established their Jatropha hedges after joining the Jatropha production. They highlighted that Jatropha is not a new intervention to them it only became very important re-cently for biodiesel production. This confirmed what is in most literature on Jatropha in Zimbabwe by (Tigere et al. 2006; Gandure 2009) that Jatropha has been grown in Mu-toko since time immemorial. Organisations such as Plan In-ternational, NOCZIM and Finealt were the ones that were mentioned to be supporting the communities. Plan Interna-tional mainly supported the beneficiaries in the small pro-jects by training them how by-products can be made from Jatropha. Trainings constitute what Kabeer (2001) refers to as human resources.

4.4 Sense of AgencyInformation gathered from the field visit revealed that, sense of agency amongst the women in Chindenga village was very active. Most of the women in the community

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showed that they were attracted by the by-products espe-cially ‘soap’ to join the Jatropha project and they joined the project at their own will. One woman mentioned that,

Being involved in projects like this makes me a proud woman knowing that I am the one who made the soap, I do not have to go to the shops to look for soap’.( Tendesai, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 21/07/10)According to (Kabeer, 2001:21) agency is, ‘ability to

define one’s goal and act upon them’. From the interviews the women were motivated to engage in the project be-cause they knew what they were to benefit from it.

4.4.1 Decision making on how proceeds from Jatropha are used

On the issue of decision making most of the women high-lighted that their capacity to make decisions had really been improved through the Jatropha project. Most of the women highlighted that because of the income they got from the project, they were also able to contribute to house-hold income and this has made their husbands to recognise them as people with potential. One woman said:

When I got into the Jatropha project my husband used to look down upon me but I continued, with time when I managed to buy my kitchen utensils as well as contrib-uted to the school fees of our children then he started respecting me. He also began to encourage me to attend any workshops that had anything to do with Jatropha. He started accepting my contributions, so I can say it has really improved, but the challenge now is that I have stopped making soap due to financial constraints (Ruvimbo, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 21/07/10)This is what Kabeer (2001:21) refers to by agency

“power within” the motivation that one brings into certain actions. In most literature on gender women are portrayed as having passive agency but on this project it was ob-served that women actually had very active agency to parti-cipate in the project, however it is the project that did not have much to offer towards women’s empowerment. Des-pite challenges faced by the women they still strived to achieve their goals.

Some of the women could not really tell whether their decision making capacity had improved. One woman said:

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My husband seems to be very jealous of my achieve-ments, every time he always accuses me of not listening to him because I now have my own money. This has somehow drawn me back, every time I get something I forward it all to him and he is the one who actually de-cides what to do. (Rumbidzai, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 21/07/2010) As mentioned earlier women in this community are al-

ways confined to their homes. Culturally women are expec-ted to spend the day at home doing the household chores, cooking and also going to the fields. When the husband comes home food should be ready therefore it becomes dif-ficult for other men to accept that their wives are actually doing well and are in a position to work and bring some in-come. This is what was argued by Parpart et al. that,

Groups become empowered through collective action, but that action is enabled or constrained by the structures of power that they encounter. We believe much closer attention must be paid to the broad political and economic structures, cultural assumptions and discourses, notions of human rights, laws and practices in which women and men seek to survive and even flourish in marginalised communities around the world (2002:4). Some of the socially defined roles between men and wo-

men can really become a barrier to women’s empowerment as mentioned by some of the women interviewed.

Figure 1: Who decides on how proceeds from Jatropha can be used?

Source: Author’s interview with the beneficiaries: 2010

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As depicted in the chart above 80 percent of the women acknowledged that they are the ones who decided on how proceeds from Jatropha were used. One woman said:

At first it was difficult to tell my husband how much I was getting because I was afraid that he would be jeal-ous and stop me from making my own money. However, I later noticed that he now respects me a lot because I am able to contribute to household income. I am the one who actually decides what I want to do with the money but I do share my plan with him before I do it, because he is the head of the household. (Chipo, personal Inter-view in Chindenga Village, 26/07/10)The other 15% of the women interviewed mentioned

they did not make any decisions as far as Jatropha proceeds were concerned, and lastly the other 5% mentioned that they made joint decisions with their husbands. Some of the women actually fear to join some local development initiat-ives that can make them better beings because they feel that they are supposed to be always below men in everything. This is what was brought out by Malhotra cit-ing Kabeer, ‘when women internalize their subordinated status and view themselves as persons of lesser value, their sense of their own rights and entitlements is diminished’ in (Malhotra et al. 2002:10). This may be slowly changing as depicted by majority of the responses from the women but it was observed that some of the women are still being drawn back by the social structures that make them lesser beings. Agarwal argues that,

Norms could impinge on bargaining in at least four ways: they set limits on what can be bargained about, they affect how the process of bargaining is conducted – covertly or overtly, aggressively or quietly, they constitute a factor to be bargained over, that is, social norms can be endogenous in that they can themselves be subject to negotiation and change. (1997:5)

4.4.2 Who makes decisions on family issuesTable 1: who makes decisions on family issues in the households?

Number Percentage

Men 22 69

Women 4 12

Joint 6 19

Total 32 100

Source: Author’s interview with the beneficiaries: 2010

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As depicted in the table above 69% of the interviewed women indicated that men are the main decision makers in the family whilst 19% reported that decisions are jointly made and 12% made by women. Women are the ones who take care of agriculture production whilst the men are away, yet they cannot make decisions concerning family is-sues. They cannot do anything to participate in decision-making. However, one woman said that,

When it comes to issues that have to do with decision making it is formally men who make the decisions be-cause they are the ones who speak out, but in fact it is us women who make most of the decisions through ma-nipulating our husbands. We try by all means to con-vince them to do what we want and in most cases we win. We just do not speak out because that way we avoid confrontation and also in our culture men are sup-posed to be respected therefore we try to give them the respect that is due to them (Ndatenda, personal inter-view in Chindenga Village,26/07/10)Almost all the respondents who reported that women

were the decision makers in their families were female headed; either widowed or divorced. Even so, these women reported that they still had to consult husband’s families es-pecially on issues regarding children. A 42 year old widow highlighted that,

I am a widow and I make all the decisions at household level, but it can really be a challenge when it comes to making decisions that have to do with the children. I had serious problems with my late husband’s family when my daughter was about to get married. Some of the things we have to consult (Tsitsi, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 26/07/10)Culture and the way of socialisation play an important

role in the subjugation of women. Most of the interviewed women confirmed that they still regard themselves as being inferior and this actually has been a bottleneck in their em-powerment. This was also noted by Kabeer citing Sen and Batliwala, ‘Men do not always take kindly the interventions that destabilize the balance of power within the household and that empowerment processes may sometimes lead to an initial increase in abuse because they challenge the status quo of gender power’ (Kabeer 1999:22-23).

Women making joint decision with their husbands con-curred that they respect their husbands and do everything to make them feel that they are the head of households.

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Wanjiku and Wanjira in their study on micro credit found that the programs rarely empower women. They argued that even if their income is increased women always remain marginalised both in the home as well as in the markets. They highlight that, ‘In the market, the power of women mi-cro entrepreneurs relative to men is negligible. In the home, despite their increased importance as providers, wo-men are still subordinated to their husbands’ (2002:183).

4.5 AchievementsOn achievements the other dimension of empowerment which ideally leads to decision making power, the focus was on looking at the tangible things that have changed in the lives of the women involved in the projects. Achievements include both access to resources and agency Kabeer (2001). Specifically, it concerns investigating what exactly women can say they have got or have changed as a result of the project.

80% of the women interviewed highlighted that their material well being had improved as a result of their parti-cipation in the project. Most of the women mentioned that after getting involved in the projects they were able to en-gage in a lot of activities that they were not able to do pre-viously. However, it was noted that the expectations of the women about the project were different from the national objective. For the women the focus was mainly on house-hold use and income generation. Although in the national draft policy it is mentioned that this project was also to im-prove the livelihoods of the local people, the main focus was to produce bio-diesel, a concept that most women did not really understand. This also comes out clearly in the paper by Hunsberger (2010) on the politics of Jatropha in Kenya that the objectives of the government, NGOs and farmers on the ground were very different. These different interests contribute greatly to whether the project empowered wo-men or disempowered communities.

A large percentage of the women interviewed men-tioned that with the proceeds from Jatropha they managed to buy their kitchen utensils – this was something that every woman interviewed seemed to be proud of. Some managed to pay for school fees for their children, and also bought food, clothing and blankets for the household. According to Kabeer (2001) this constitutes the other dimension of em-powerment which is referred to as achievements.

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The women were capacitated to produce by-products from Jatropha such as soap, candles and because of their active agency they were able to work on the project to achieve their goals. All the women were proud of all these achievements -signifying a high degree of satisfaction in having acquired essential household items such as kitchen utensils. Some women actually mentioned the following:

I am very proud because I managed to buy my kitchen utensils and blankets, things that I have always wanted to buy in my house (Nyasha, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 26/07/10)And,I am very proud because I managed to buy my kitchen utensils, when people come to visit me I now have better utensils to use and this is every woman’s dream. But the problem is I have stopped making soap because I no longer have money to buy the inputs (Tendai, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 30/07/10)Some also mentioned that they managed to raise money

to send their children to school. One woman highlighted the following:

One thing that I was really happy about was the fact that I managed to send my children to school. My chil-dren had been sent out of school because my husband could no longer pay their fees. I also managed to buy them some of the basic items that are required at school such as writing books and pencil, something that I had always longed to do but could not do because of finan-cial constraints. Now my greatest fear is whether I am going to continue because the cost of the inputs is now too high. (Masimba, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 30/07/10)Some of the interviewed women highlighted that they

generated some additional income from selling the by- products, they no longer had to rely on their husband’s in-come to go to the grinding mill and to buy some household groceries and clothing. The women emphasised that this contributed to reduced domestic violence at home,

Before engaging in the project we had no source of in-come most of the time my husband would get home whilst there is no food to eat at all. All we would do was to wait for him to come and give us money to buy the food and many times this would cause us to fight.

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(Ngoni, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 31/07/10)The same was also found out in a study by Agarwal,

‘they feared that if land titles went only to husbands, wives would be rendered relatively even more powerless, and vul-nerable to domestic violence. Their fears proved correct. Where only men got titles there was an increase in drunk-enness, wife – beating and threats, where women received titles they could now assert’ (1996:277). The quote is talk-ing about access to land and in this case it is access to in-come that made changes to these women’s lives, this shows that if women have access to some resources or income it can actually improve their bargaining power at the house-hold level. In Chindenga village access to income improved the way of life for most households as incidences of do-mestic violence were actually lessened. A study by Tigere et al. on Jatropha production and women empowerment re-vealed that, ‘this has empowered female smallholder farm-ers who can now generate extra household income from sales of the seed and Jatropha seed cake. This has to some extent addressed gender equity in terms of income genera-tion.’(2006:7).

Further, the women interviewed mentioned that the soap they made from Jatropha had really improved their way of lives in terms of work - burden. One woman men-tioned that,

Before we could make soap from Jatropha oil we would go to near by farms to do part time jobs and in turn get a few dollars which would then enable us to buy pieces of soap. Now after the involvement in the project we can make our own soap, we no longer have to do part time jobs a lot and our children are now always looking smart and healthy (Tariro, personal interview in Chindenga Village,31/07/10)They highlighted that, even if they still had to do surviv-

alist jobs at nearby farms, the need was less. They also mentioned that own soap production enhanced the family’s hygiene hence reducing the likelihood of hygiene related infections. This improved the women’s ability to make stra-tegic life choices, that choice which they previously lacked before they now had because of the involvement in the pro-ject. According to Kabeer (2001) if one is able to do what they could not do before, in some sense they are em-powered. This bit of choice was clearly observable when women mentioned that because of the project they no longer had to go and do survivalist jobs every time. They

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could now choose whether to go or not depending on their needs at that particular time. This was also confirmed by women who were not involved in Jatropha production, they highlighted that although most of them were not interested in the project they could actually see some changes in wo-men who were involved in Jatropha project. One woman in-terviewed reported that,

The project helped in increasing income for some of the women in this community, some of them who used to work hard in the commercial farms have since reduced their frequency there. Although not so much observable changes could be noted on all the women because some never sold the soap it was good because they had soap to use at the household. They did not have to go and buy soap’ (Farai, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 2/08/10)Project non participants noticed slight changes in the

livelihoods of project participants. They reaffirmed that some women managed to buy some kitchen utensils, get some extra income whilst a few who were doing well actu-ally managed to send their children to school. However, they stressed that these women could have been better if they were linked to markets because most of them were really dedicated to the project but the support that they get from the project is too limited. One of the women (non-pro-ject participant) explained:

Yes, they have benefited but as far as I think what they are benefiting is too little, the women are hard working but in most cases after looking for their own inputs and making the soap or candles they are not linked to mar-kets. Most of them end up using the products at their homes or end up selling them cheaply in the community. It was better if they are firstly provided with inputs and then also linked to markets. Technical expertise alone was not enough (Maidei, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 3/08/10)The same was also was brought out by Hunsberger in a

study on Jatropha in Kenya, it was argued that, ‘Jatropha activities currently focus on distributing seeds and seed-lings to farmers and providing training on how to manage the crop very little processing and virtually no marketing and use of Jatropha are taking place’(2010:949). This can under capacitate women and is disempowering because these projects are not complete in themselves and they leave women in a vulnerable position instead of actually im-proving their material well-being.

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From the achievements discussed above it is clear that most of the achievements mentioned have been noted earlier in the resources and agency sections. This is what is mentioned by Kabeer, ‘it is similarly difficult to judge the validity of an achievement measure unless we have evid-ence, or can make a reasonable guess, as to whose agency was involved and extent to which the achievement in ques-tion transformed prevailing inequalities in resources and agency’ (2001:40). It is not possible to take an indicator as empowerment without looking at the other dimensions.

4.5.1 Non Production income empowermentFrom the foregoing discussion, it is evident that in Chindenga village, women were making some income espe-cially through the processing of Jatropha into by-products such as soap and candles. Women were free to participate in the Jatropha project. In figure 1 it is clear that 80% of the women mentioned that they had control over Jatropha pro-ceeds. From the field work conducted in Chindenga village, when asked what happens to the income from the sales of the by-products, most of the women mentioned that they use it mostly for household purposes. One woman men-tioned that,

I do not have to wait for my husband to give me money to buy food or to go to the grinding mill anymore, I just use that money’ (Sekesai, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 5/08/10). Other women who were doing exceptionally well men-

tioned that they could even send their children to school. From this it is clear that the income was used for house-

hold purposes, it was not necessarily for personal use by women themselves. Parpart et al. argue that, ‘Microcredit enables women to earn an increase in their income, thereby increasing their bargaining power within the households. However, this income rarely allows them to meet their so-cial and economic responsibilities, let alone facilitate a move to more productive activities’ (2002:196). The income benefits the household as a whole not only the women. Gedzi argues that, ‘this breadwinner role may make some women exhaust the little income they have. This indirectly enables their husbands to save towards acquisition of prop-erty.’ (2009:124).

However, in this case the women mentioned that this empowered them as it gave them voice and also bargaining

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power to challenge the existing power relation at the house-hold level. As quoted earlier one woman mentioned that be-cause she now had access to some income, she no longer had to wait for her husband to bring food, hence she was no longer prone to verbal and physical abuse, as she no longer had to ask for money from her husband. Before joining the project, every time she would ask for money it would turn into physical abuse. Agarwal discussing on women and land rights mentions that, ‘land rights can also improve the treatment a woman receives from other family members by strengthening their bargaining power’ (1996:276). In this case the income gave the women bargaining power to chal-lenge existing intra household relations that made them to have subordinate positions, hence empowering the women psychologically.

4.6 What went wrong? Currently in Zimbabwe the Jatropha project has been put on hold, NOCZIM has withdrawn its resources from the pro-ject. The main reason for NOCZIM stopping the project was because of lack funds. The national biodiesel project was being funded by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) the bank no longer had the funds for the project. Also, one local newspaper revealed that NOCZIM was working under an estimated US $270 million debt and this was now threaten-ing the operation of the organisation, ‘NOCZIM is also try-ing to sell some of its assets including buildings, tractors and vehicles in a bid to settle the enormous debt, this has seen the company suspending cash straining projects such as Jatropha planting’ (Mukarati, 2010). 2

Apparently, Plan International has also put on hold their project because they do not want to go against the National objective which is to produce Jatropha for Bio-diesel pro-duction. However, when NOCZIM was contacted on this is-sue it reported that,

By-products do not take much of the Jatropha seed therefore there is no way the production of Jatropha will affect the national plan’ (Mr Tsuro, personal interview in Harare, 16/08/10). One major issue that could have led the project to come

to a sudden end was the policy issue. As mentioned earlier in chapter 3 due to the sanctions that were imposed on Zim-babwe the country could no longer have access to credit as

2 Quote from a local Newspaper article. The Financial Gazette, 13 May 2010.

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well as fuel imports. According to ZELA (2010) that is when the government decided to embark on biofuel production so as to be fuel reliant. In as much as this was good idea it was done without a comprehensive and proper national policy in place. Gandure highlights that, ‘it appears the primary goal is to achieve economic and national supply target rather than reducing inequalities’ (2009:44). The background of this project shows that there were political interests at play which needed to be satisfied without considering the issue of empowering people that were fully engaged in the pro-jects. This is inline with (Staudt, 2002:97)’s argument that, ‘Large, macro level structures have set the stage that dis-empower people, and yet staff from some of those struc-tures revisit the stage with empowerment language’. In this case the priority of the GoZ was biodiesel, but the local people were encouraged to engage in the projects because it would help boost their livelihoods. The project was initi-ated without adequate research because from what was be-ing done the linkages were not in place. For example, the GoZ is still in the process of building the plant in Mutoko where Jatropha will be processed. Even if enough Jatropha seed is to be there today it would still not be able to be pro-cessed because the country does not have a plant. The pro-ject was jump-started without proper planning.

4.6.1 Conflicts within the communitySocieties are not homogeneous entities, that is, one cannot take a community and treat the people as though they all are equal and think the same. Looking at a poor and remote rural community like Chindenga one is tempted to see all women who live there as being very poor and at the same level. However, the field study reviewed that the women in the locality have different interests and aspirations. Jatropha projects in the Chindenga ward were received by the people in the community differently. There were ele-ments of conflicts that existed among the women working on the projects.

One thing that came out clearly as the women were be-ing interviewed was the aspect of the resources that were used in the project. As mentioned earlier that Plan Interna-tional distributed nine machines in the community to press oil from the Jatropha seed. These machines were not enough considering that they were meant to benefit the whole village. The machines were distributed at different

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central points in the community so that those involved in the projects would freely have access to the machine that was closest to them. Based on the feedback received from women interviewed in this study not everyone was able to access the machines. Only those holding powerful in the community would mostly use the machines. This was a chal-lenge in the project for most of the women as they felt that there had to be another way of distributing the machines which would help them to easily access them. One of the women was quoted saying that:

We do have machines that we can use but most of the time we actually grind the seeds manually because we can not access the machines. At the end we produce low quality soap because the oil will not be purified prop-erly. Personally I have gone to Chindenga primary school almost 5 times, where the nearest machine is, to book for a day to use the machine but every time, I was always told the machine is fully booked for the next four weeks or more. The machine will just be circulating among a very few women in this area. I was not able question them because the women who always had the machine are the headman’s wife, leader of the ZANU – PF(ruling part in Zimbabwe) women’s league in the area and other influential women in the community(Ruram-isai, personal interview in Chindenga Village,5/08/10)Although most feminist’s discussions focus on women’s

empowerment as the emancipation from the patriarchal system, giving women power over resources. This study ac-tually revealed that conflicts among women themselves hamper their own progress. In other words, there were wo-men who were powerful in the community and used their positions to have access to resources at the expense of other women. Only the influential and powerful women were the ones that appeared to have derived much of the benefits of the Jatropha projects. They are the ones who re-ported to sending their children to school with the money they got from the soap and candle making project. This ac-tually confirms Rai’s argument that most projects that seek to empower women present women without differentiation, ‘the issue of class is at the heart of the process of engender-ing development’ (2002:135). In the end it was the powerful women who benefited more from this project, yet it could have actually empowered all the women involved. In the same line (Kabeer 200:21) talks of ‘negative agency’ in the sense of ‘power over’ where some actors are able to over-power others because of different power relations. In this

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case women disempowered each other because they lacked access to the resources which could have potentially helped them to boost their production. In most cases it actually dis-couraged the weaker women in the community.

Also, another interesting aspect that came out of the in-terviews was about the training workshops to empower pro-ject beneficiaries with new skills and knowledge. Most of the women interviewed raised concerns about how the wo-men were chosen to go for the trainers workshops. Usually the workshops were done out of the communities. Again the women mentioned that it was the influential women who were taken for the trainings and would then come to train other women. The major problem the women raised was that these powerful women were too busy to train other wo-men in the community as per expectation. A few were able to do it and it took long to train the rest of the women in the community. At the end women ended up training each other informally and a lot of important aspects were ignored and left out. Some of the women were not be able to produce quality soap and candles because they would have missed the proper trainings on the quantities required.

Plan International when interviewed on the issue of these concerns that these women had about the project, showed that there was awareness that there were conflicts. The officer acknowledged that such conflicts are obviously unavoidable in communities, adding that they could not do much about the issue. The officer was quoted as saying that,

Problems like this are obvious in communities where people live. Some of the women who raise such con-cerns are the ones who are lazy and are not very serious about the project. Dependency syndrome is now affect-ing these communities, they want all things to be done for them they actually do not want to make efforts to go and use the machines. We as Plan International we can-not buy some more machines because of financial con-straints, the women actually have to make efforts to be able to use the machines. (Mr Gudo, personal interview in Mutoko, 16/07/10)This led to the project having different impacts, with

some women doing well whilst others in the same project and in the same community struggling. This is in line with what was argued by Staudt (2002) that organisations that bring these projects play a very vital role in making sure that the beneficiaries they seek to empower are em-powered. In most cases these organisations have their own

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interests to address which at the end of the day do not ad-dress the objective.

4.6.2 Distribution and MarketingAs argued earlier in the paper women were more interested in the by – products of Jatropha. From the interviews it was reviewed that women were actually producing soap and candles and some were selling these products. According to the women they could sell for US$ 50c a bar of soap and US$1 per 6 candles. This actually helped them to boost their income. However, most of the women mentioned that they did not have access to markets to sell their products. Plan International did not link them to markets - they had to find markets to sell their soap on their own. This was also confirmed by the officer from Plan International.

As a result of the economic crisis commodities would just be sold anyhow, if one had goods to sell they could just liaise with the owners of shops in the community and sell their goods. In turn they would pay the shopkeeper the amount they would have agreed. This was also happening in Chindenga village, the women would have to seek the con-sent of the business people in the area to be able to sell their products. However, the shops in Chindenga are a few. It was the soap of good quality that could actually be sold in the shops. From the interviews conducted one woman men-tioned that,

I never got the opportunity to put my products in the shops because the soap I used to make was not of high quality. I never got the access to use the machines to ex-tract oil from the seeds so I would just grind the seeds manually and this would leave some grains and particles in the oil which would then lead to poor quality soap which was very dark and rough. It is the women who had access to the machines who benefited more, be-cause in most cases their soap and candles would be of high quality. Therefore they would easily be accepted by the shop owners to sell their products’ (Rudo, personal interview in Chindenga Village, 21/07/10). The women who were able to sell their products at the

shops were better off because their soap was sold fast and at very good price because the growth point is the heart of the village. Many people go there and business is very fast and good in that place. In most cases it was the influential women who were able to sell their soap in the shops. (Ka-beer, 2001:20) highlights, ‘the way resources are distrib-

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uted and the relationships that exist are very important as far as empowerment is concerned’. In this case the power-ful women found it easier to sell their products in the shops whilst the rest of the women could not because of the power as well as the type of relationships that exists.

Most women ended up selling their products in the vil-lage because they did not have access to markets. This was problematic because almost everyone in the community was making the same products. Therefore, they ended up not having anywhere to sell the soap because all the possible markets were flooded with the same products. This eventu-ally contributed to most women stopping the production of the by-products for sale. Most of the women ended up pro-ducing soap for use at the household level.

Before the introduction of the multicurrency payment system in Zimbabwe, the country was in a long period hyperinflationary environment and shortages of basic com-modities. This was a trying time for businesses including small scale Jatropha by-products processors. The women could no longer realise profits from the enterprise. This led the women to stop concentrating on selling the by-products.

4.6.3 Macro – PoliticsFrom a political perspective, the rush into biofuels was mainly caused by the need to overcome serious fuel short-ages that had hit the country and also the continuous rise of the prices of fossil fuels around 2008. According to ZELA, ‘the launching of the biofuels projects was a political re-sponse by the government of Zimbabwe to the fuel crisis. The background to this is due to human rights abuses and bad political governance and suffering of people many Western countries like the United States, Britain and Aus-tralia had imposed travel sanctions on the political elite in Zimbabwe’ (2010:8). According to (NOCZIM 2010:8; ZELA 2010:8) It should also be noted at this point that this was not the first time Zimbabwe had engaged in biofuel produc-tion. In the 1970s during the then Rhodesian government the same thing happened when the government was hit by sanctions and were not able to import fuel. The Rhodesian government responded by establishing sugarcane planta-tions for ethanol production. This arrangement did work but later the plantations failed to be properly maintained by the independent government. The interests of the poor groups such as women were never taken into consideration from the start of this Jatropha project, yet it is women who are

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mostly involved in the projects. The main driver was to sat-isfy the political interests and the political elite who wanted the country to be fuel reliant.

Also during this time the economy of the country was continually constrained, with inflation rates rising accom-panied by serious foreign currency shortages. In June 2009 the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) introduced a new payment system under the multicurrency system. This was done so as to cab the hyperinflation environment that had hit the country for almost a decade (RBZ, 2009:1). This move to multicurrency led to currencies like the US dollar among other currencies becoming the currencies being used in Zimbabwe today. It caused challenges in different sectors as the securing of the foreign currency was a hard task. According to NOCZIM, ‘the dollarization of the eco-nomy has resulted in foreign currency becoming the me-dium of exchange in Zimbabwe. The country relies on fuel imports which require foreign currency. This posed viability problems for oil companies in the past as securing foreign currency for fuel importation proved very difficult’ (2010:22). This change of currency also affected the Jatropha projects, NOCZIM also started to lack funds to pursue the project, which led the project to be suspended. Also the women on the ground faced some challenges in purchasing the inputs since they also did not have the for-eign currency.

4.7 What does it mean for such projects: are such projects useful even if they bring the fo-cus on women?The most promising and potential uses that Jatropha pro-duction have got are in rural agro industrial development such as soap making and candle making. As mentioned by Tigere et al. in their research on Jatropha production in Zi-mbabwe it was noted that , ‘the oil requires little or no chemical processing, and the oil will be used in making soap, candles and lubricants.’ (2006:6). Rural households especially women have the potential to produce the by-products and in turn sell and increase their income. If there are properly established markets and in the initial stages the households are able to get support in acquiring the in-puts that are required these households can actually go to great heights in having more income as well as getting

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more empowered since they will be able to derive more be-nefits from such a projects.

The seeds can also be sold to increase income at the household level, according to Tigere et al. (2006) in Zimb-abwe Jatropha is harvested from May to August. This is a great advantage since agriculture labour requirements will be off-peak at this time of the year, households can be in-volved in the harvesting of the crop without much interfer-ence with other crops which they may value more than Jatropha. This in fact enables households to earn more ex-tra cash with resources that they locally produce. Although selling the seeds without adding value to them offers less returns it is at least a way of increasing income at the household level and can make households in such com-munities to be able to stand on their on.

Also, Jatropha production like any other biomass pro-duction has the potential to create employment for rural workers. As mentioned by White and Dasgupta that, ‘Agro-fuel projects can promise employment and incomes for tens of millions of rural workers, whether as smallholder farmers producing on contract, wage workers on plantation, or workers in the upstream and downstream agro-industries’ (2010:2). This was going to be an important aspect in rural development. Most rural people migrate to urban areas to search for employment although this have positive aspects there are also very negative aspects on migration. There-fore, projects like this can potentially attract rural people to stay in their communities working there and develop their own communities.

Aside of revitalising stagnating rural economies, Jatropha production could also help in ensuring the provi-sion of green energy which would replace the fossil fuels and help in fighting global warming. This is a highly debat-able issue as far as biofuels are concerned but as men-tioned by (Mol, 2007: 299-300), ‘the continuing concern about the role of fossil fuels in climate change via the re-lease of greenhouse gasses during exploitation, transport and especially, their use has created attention into all kinds of renewable energy alternatives’ the production of Jatropha can also potentially lead to a sustainable means of fuel which will help in curbing climate change a global problem that has since began affecting most rural areas in many developing countries.

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4.8 Sustainability of such a projectAs White and Dasgupta argued in their paper that, ‘we should not fall into the fallacy of blaming a crop (or the uses to which the crop is put) it all depends on the manner in which these crops are grown, under which forms of owner-ship and labour regimes and in what kind of commodity chains’ (2010:18). This paper argues that projects like this do have the potential to empower women in rural com-munities. They can be sustainable particularly with respect to by-products. It all depends on whether the policies that have been put in place are pro –poor and also on how the projects are run from the beginning. As a country Zimb-abwe could have learnt from other leading countries in bio-fuel production such as Brazil, as highlighted by Clancy, ‘lessons from the early fuel ethanol programme in Brazil would indicate that there is need for such policies’ (2009:423) As the women interviewed clearly said, the pro-ject increased their source of income, this was going to be better if the project was properly planned from the start. In this case the agency for the women involved in the project was very active and they could have been taken to greater heights.

4.9 ConclusionThe Jatropha project has empowered the women in the Chindenga village in different ways. Through the project women managed to have access to trainings as well as gain income from the sell of by-products. It was noted that most of the income the women made was mainly used for the household. It was not necessarily for personal use by the women. Most importantly because of their achievements the women’s bargaining power was really improved be-cause they now had access to income which gave them a voice as to challenge some of the abuses they used to get from their husbands. However, due to the different power relations in the community there were some women who were empowered and some women who disempowered other women. It was revealed that the most powerful wo-men are those who had more access to machines, trainings and also to markets at the expense of the rest of the women involved in the project. Most of the women ended up stop-ping by-products for sale because they did not have access to markets. Plan International and NOCZIM did not link the women to the markets. From the findings it was also re-

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vealed that there was no substantial bio-fuel policy in Zimb-abwe, this led to the projects to be implemented without proper planning. However it was argued in the paper that project such as this are sustainable especially looking at the by-products aspect of it, it depends on the policies that are in place and also whether issues of different power rela-tions are properly addressed from the beginning of the pro-ject.

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CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusions

The aim of this concluding chapter is to recap on the strik-ing issues that have come up throughout this paper. The ob-jective of the paper was to find out if Jatropha production has empowered women in Mutoko district’s Chindenga Vil-lage in Zimbabwe. Jatropha production was started with the intention to have a home grown fuel substitution solution.

Study findings point out that at the national level, there were underlying political motives at play which sought to satisfy personal needs for a country that was hit by sanc-tions. The political elite sought to be fuel reliant through the Jatropha project without taking into consideration the needs of the rural people especially women who would be involved in the project. The project was implemented without a proper policy in place and this led to inconsist-ency in how the projects were being run. Also, the project was not well informed from the beginning, there was not a lot of research done about the production of biofuels. At the same time the country was going through a rough economic crisis which contributed to the stop of the project.

The paper used Kabeer (2001)’s three dimensions of em-powerment which are ‘Resources, Agency and Achieve-ments’ to analyse the findings. It also engaged with differ-ent conceptualisations of empowerment. It was found out that even in the absence of clear implementation plans some women drew notable benefits from the projects which empowered them. From the findings it emerged that women had access to machines provided by Plan International, however, it was clear that the women did not own the ma-chines. They could just use them but in most cases they did not get the chance because of the powerful women involved in the project. This was not sustainable because women ended up grinding the seeds manually - they did not have sense of ownership as far as the machines were concerned. They also received trainings on how to maintain the Jatropha plants and on how to make by-products from NOCZIM and Plan International respectively. It was also clear from the interviews that women’s sense of agency was active. The women were willing to take up the project be-cause they knew they would benefit from it. Most of the women managed to buy their kitchen utensils, food whilst others who were doing well were able to send their children to school. The income they got from the sale of the by –

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products increased the bargaining power for the women at the household level.

However, a further analysis showed that women in this community were impacted differently by the project. Power struggles within the community led to the disempowerment of other women. In analysing how the project empowered women, this raised questions whether there is really some-thing like “empowerment” in development projects. Also can all projects which seek to empower a certain group of people, empower the whole group. Case in point, there are some who were empowered more than others. Therefore, this then leaves a lot of questions about what “empower-ment” is all about.

It was also found out that most of the women had no ac-cess to markets to sell their by-products this led to most of the women stopping making products for sell. It was also noted that the project did not do much to challenge some of the social and cultural roles between men and women in the community which make women to always have subordinate positions. Most of the women mentioned that even though they are the ones responsible and who decide on how the income from the by-products is to be used. They still had to consult their husbands because they are the household heads.

Most International Organisations as well as the World Bank now emphasise on sustainability in as far as develop-ment projects are concerned. However, in most cases this ceases to exist during actual implementation of the pro-jects. In Zimbabwe Jatropha production was started without fully rising awareness to the local people, most of the wo-men mentioned that they did not know about the bio-diesel concept. Also, the project just came to a sudden end without informing the local people who were involved in the project. It is argued in this paper that Jatropha production can be a sustainable project, which has significant import-ance in terms of revitalising stagnant rural communities at the local level. It was found that the project is still far from producing biodiesel for the nation however through the by-products rural women stand to benefit income which would then empower them. Hence, there is need for a clear policy which promotes the participation of women. It is important to set the project with a mind of supporting the women right from the production stage up to the marketing stage so that maximum benefits are derived from the project by the women.

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Also, biofuel production has been gaining a lot of im-portance lately and most developing countries have also joined in. However, most countries started implementing these projects without informed policies. Looking at Mozambique it started without a clear policy and this caused a lot of conflicts in the communities due to power relations, ‘Problems also became apparent with large scale investors and the methods employed to access land of major concern is the lack of public participation, disregard for local culture and practices, false promises, corruption land conflicts and land grabs’ (Ribeiro and Matavel, 2009:10). In some cases the local people actually were displaced from their land in order to produce the biomass. It created a lot of patron and client relationships, something which is not in favour with community development. This paper is indicat-ive of the importance of considering community dynamics and understanding how families with different interests and power relations co-exist. The issue of class has influence in development projects hence attention also has to be paid to it. Given the limited resources available in most developing countries issues such as these are important to address in the biofuel policy which at the moment is not yet passed as a comprehensive policy in Zimbabwe.

Apparently, there were issues that this paper could not address empirically. For example it brings out that there were political interests that were at play from the begin-ning of this project but does not go further to look at what really transpired. Future research should also consider looking at the political economy of the Jatropha project in line with women’s empowerment. Besides looking at the na-tional politics only, the organisations that are at play as well as the women who are involved in the project could also be analysed and see how the relationships that exist at all these levels can actually lead to women’s empowerment in this project. This could help to see how the politics sur-rounding the Jatropha project could have impacted on wo-men’s empowerment.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Semi – structured interview guide

Semi structured Interview questions for both women involved and not involved in Jatropha Production

Part 1 – Identifying informationDate of Interview ………………………………………………………

Name of interviewee……………………………………………………

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Name of HOH………………………………………………………….

Village……………………………………………………………………

District……………………………………………………………………

Part 2 – Household Information

1. Age (years)……………………………………………………….

2. Marital Status ……………………………………………………

3. What is the number of people staying in this house-hold………….

Part 3 – Regarding the extent to which women have access to resources

4. Does your household have access to land for Agricul-ture?

Yes/ no…………………………………………………………..

5. If Yes, what is your land size……………………………………..

6. Who makes decisions over the use of land? ………………………

7. What are the three main crops being grown by your household ……….

8. Is your household currently growing Jatropha yes / No - to Q16……..

9. What is land size under Jatropha? Hectares ………………………….

Part 4 – What are the terms of incorporation for wo-men involved in Jatropha Production?

10. For how long have you been growing Jatropha? Years ………………

11. Is anyone supporting you in growing Jatropha? Yes/ No – Q13

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12. Which organisations are supporting you and what kind of support are you getting? …

13. What motivates you to grow Jatropha? Explain ………………………..

14. Are women from the community free to participate in Jatropha trainings? Yes/No

15. If, Yes, What is/are the problems(s) …………………………………..

Question 16 – 18 For households not involved in Jatropha production

16. Why you are not involved in Jatropha production…………………….

17. Is it more profitable than Jatropha production……………………….

18. How do you see the lives of women who are involved in Jatropha produc ion, do you see major changes from the time they started until now………

19. Did your household receive any training on Jatropha? Yes / No – Q19

20. Who in your household was trained?......................................................

(a)Respondent HoH (if not the same) (b) Other family member (c)N/A

21. If Yes, what was the training about.............................................?

From this question going down, Jatropha producers only

22. Who makes decisions over Jatropha production in your household?

(a) Women (b) Men (c) Joint decision

23. Who decides on how proceeds from Jatropha can be used?

(a) Women (b) Men (c) Joint decision

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Part 5 - What has been the effect of Jatropha produc-tion on women in terms of decision –making?

24. Who makes decisions on family issues in the house-hold?

a) Women (b) Men (c) Joint decision

25. Before joining the Jatropha project could you say you could take independent decisions in your household? Yes/ No explain……………………

26. Has there been any changes in your capacity to make decisions after engaging in the Jatropha project? Yes/ No Explain ……………………

Semi structured Interview questions for (ministry of Energy& Power Development/NOCZIM & NGOs)

1. Name of Organisation …………………..

2. How many hectares of Jatropha have been planted in Mutoko to date

3. Do you think there will be an increase from this? Ex-plain

4. in what ways has your organisation contributed to wo-men’s empowerment through the Jatropha project ………………………

5. Do you have any plans to fully involve women in Jatropha projects ……?

6. So far do you see any changes in women especially in terms of decision – making

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Appendix B: Field PicturesOver 20years old Jatropha plant used as hedge around

the garden (Field survey, July 2010)

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Jatropha bean seed, ready to be sold or pressed for oil (Field Survey, July, 2010)

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Some of the women involved in Jatropha production – in Chindenga Village, Mutoko (Field survey, July 2010)

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