Including both equity and efficiency claims for international development

Many development projects promote women’s equality in the expectation that they will achieve both increased equity and gains in efficiency or productivity. New and detailed sex-disaggregated data on agricultural projects with specific gender components shows that these “win-win” outcomes are possible but not inevitable. Proponents of investments that target women farmers should therefore not take for granted an efficiency gain; support for these investments may instead be better justified by appealing to arguments based on gender equity, social justice and well-being.