Résumé
This synthesis provides a comparative analysis of the situation of a large number of value chains studied by the VCA4D project, between 2016 and 2022, from a gender equality perspective. It is conducted by Agrinatura researchers that are not gender experts which positions them in a non-compromised situation. This allows them to look at the reports without a-priori-idea. The synthesis here presented, is a contribution to a discussion on gender as rooted in in-country tangible evidences, as described by the social experts of VCA4D, which add value to more theoretical and conceptual discussions. Yet, they have the limitation of being confined in value-chain orientated and context-specific approaches, carried out over short periods of time, which do not reflect broader insights. A stepwise analysis made it possible to structure the synthesis into three steps: firstly, a review of the trends in gender equality indicators in the different studies based on the scores given by the VCA4D researchers per gender items; secondly, an extensive comparative analysis of the value chain results, taking just the most representative, organised by common product type and per country. In the second step, the findings of step one, were combined with the VCA4D experts' descriptions when replying to a set of key-questions; finally, a discussion of the different results in the form of lessons learnt. For this last discussion, all the 36 studies were considered and the analysis stemmed from a more holistic look, highlighting aspects that were not foreseen but became apparent from the reading of all the reports' description and its relevance was confirmed by recent literature consultation. From the statistical analysis it was clear that the worse scores (women at higher risk) concern inequality of workloads, including domestic work and childcare, inequality of land rights, the hardship of women's work in the production activities, and the women's access to resources and services such as credit. Women participation in decision-making in the value chain was generally higher than expected, though women collective cooperation was generally low. Using this analysis, it was, however, not possible to identify neither a “country effect” nor a 'value chain effect', mainly due to the few number of cases that resulted from this disaggregation and the variety of items at stake showing contradictory results within the same VC, some good scores being combined with bad scores, yet there are some interesting trends that should be taken into account. As for the type of value-chain, although it was possible to identify the worse and the best cases, this general assessment stems from different reasons, so there is not a causal link between the type product of the VC and the scores. It is, nevertheless, interesting to note that it was detected a gender bias in the scoring process since. The worse situations were identified by female experts, and the best by male experts. From the extensive analysis, the country effect became more important, which reinforces the importance of the national context for gender equality. From the in-depth analysis of the 36 reports' descriptions, some commonalities were identified and confirmed by the literature reviewed, which made it possible to highlight the lessons learnt about gender equality, referring to some situations that were not foreseen by the VCA4D approach, but emerged from the finer analysis of the different contexts.