Gender-blind Organizations Deliver Gender-biased Services: The Case of Awasa Bureau of Agriculture in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Despite gender trainings and gender mainstreaming, the Bureau of Agriculture in Ethiopia fails to involve women farmers in its extension activities. Based on interviews with staff members in the Awasa Bureau of Agriculture (ABA) in the Sidama zone of southern Ethiopia, this article shows that ABA, being a gender-blind organization itself, is ill-equipped to motivate its staff to make specific efforts to reach out to women farmers. The systematic absence of gender considerations at all levels of the organization results in its incapacity to address the gendered entrenched position in the field, thus isolating women even further.