Can certified-tea value chains deliver gender equality in Tanzania?

Summary

A popular approach over the past twenty years has been to rely upon voluntary standards as a means to make claims, measure, and judge whether a number of social-equity concerns exist in private-sector practices. But can voluntary standards deliver gender equity? This contribution responds to this question by exploring how standards and gendered division of labor interact in certified-tea value chains (for example, Ethical Tea Partnership, Fairtrade, Organic, and Rainforest Alliance) in Tanzania. The results of this mixed-method study (2008?10, 2013) contribute to the literature on gender equity and standards by building on the gendered value-chain approach to analyze these complex and contextual interactions. The study proposes that there is a need to focus on the interactions between men and women with different skills and training that contribute to how equitably their roles are distributed in the certified-tea value chains.