• SELEVER 2 is helping shift household power dynamics through GALS: By integrating the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) into its poultry-sector work, SELEVER 2 helped couples strengthen communication, share household responsibilities, and make more joint decisions creating an environment where women’s economic participation can translate into greater agency.
• SELEVER 2 is helping women move from poultry caregivers to poultry entrepreneurs: Through GALS alongside savings groups, technical support, and market interventions, women gained greater ownership of poultry, control over productive resources, business skills, and access to services, strengthening their position in the poultry value chain.
• SELEVER 2 shows that economic empowerment and social norm change need to move together: GALS helped households question norms around women’s work, decision-making, food choices, and household roles, while SELEVER 2 connected these changes to nutrition, finance, and market opportunities. The experience shows that increasing women’s income alone is not enough lasting change requires transforming the relationships and norms that shape how resources and opportunities are used.

By Charlotte Peterson with technical input from Sita Zougouri and Adidjata Ouedraogo

More chickens. More income. More say at home? Not necessarily.

Across rural Burkina Faso, women are increasingly producing and selling poultry, building businesses, and contributing to household livelihoods. Yet for many, greater economic opportunity does not automatically rewrite the rules of a household. Deeply rooted social norms can still determine who controls resources, whose voice carries weight, and who ultimately benefits. Lasting economic inclusion therefore requires more than opening markets; it also requires changing the relationships and behaviors around them.

That is where the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) comes in. In SELEVER 2,  Tanager integrated GALS into a broader package designed to make Burkina Faso’s poultry sector more inclusive, competitive, and resilient while advancing women’s empowerment and nutrition. SELEVER 2 had already laid important work through EBENE, its positive masculinities approach, and village savings and credit associations (AVEC). But the team still saw a stubborn gap where women could participate in the market and yet still only have limited influence over household decisions. GALS was introduced to deepen the conversation and spread it further. Through visual tools, peer learning, and household planning, individuals, couples, and communities examine the norms shaping daily life and work toward:

• Expanding women’s asset base and their access to and control over productive inputs
• Strengthening women’s voice and self-efficacy
• Promoting a more equitable division of labor

 

Stages of GALS Implementation

GALS is designed for diffusion. One person learns the tools, works through them at home, and then shares them with others. In SELEVER 2, that “snowball effect” moved through three phases:

1. Change Catalyst: Across 45 villages, 368 women and men were selected and trained as GALS champions (or trainers). They then brought 279 spouses into the process and used visual tools to develop personal vision, reflect on household wellbeing and equity, and connect gender and nutrition goals with poultry production.
2. Pyramidal peer sharing and community action: Champions and peer households created personal plans, involved their spouses, and shared the process with other households, associations, and village groups. Community dialogues then took on issues chosen locally, from household communication and economic diversification to access to water. In total, the process reached more than 4,959 people from the initial 368 champions. This is the snowball effect in action.
3. Participatory evaluation: In the month following these activities, facilitators and champions brought participants together to review what had changed, what remained difficult, and what they wanted to do next. Small-group reflection fed into larger community forums, where participant’s shared lessons and new households could commit to joining the process.

 

What Changed – and What Did Not

Nutrition: An Egg is Not Just an Egg

 

Food choices are never only about information; they are also about beliefs, budgets, and who decides what comes home from the market. In several communities, eggs had long been associated with harmful myths, including the belief that giving  them to children could make them “thieves” or negatively affect their development. Participants reported that SELEVER 2’s nutrition work and GALS dialogue helped them question those beliefs and begin serving eggs more often.

“I used to think that giving eggs to children was harmful and encouraged bad behavior… Thanks to GALS, I’ve learned a lot about raising poultry. Now I often give eggs to my children, and I slaughter poultry for food at least every two weeks.” (GALS participant, Tuena, June 2025)

Local fruits faced a similar reputation problem, where some families saw them as nutritionally unimportant or as food mainly for children. Rather than simply delivering another nutrition message, GALS created space for households to examine these beliefs through facilitated dialogue, peer learning, and reflection. Participants described more deliberate consumption of eggs, fruits, meat, and fish, with children and pregnant women often prioritized.

Men’s participation also mattered. Some reported contributing more money for food and bringing home a wider range of products from the market. This demonstrates small household decisions with real nutritional consequences.

The shift is promising but not universal. The evaluation also found that some stereotypes persist and that fruit consumption remained difficult to change in some households reflecting that interventions shaping consumer preferences and behaviors must engage with the norms underpinning them.

 

Household Roles: From Obstacle to Ally

In many participating households, men had traditionally held most financial and production decisions. GALS asked couples to connect their individual ambitions with a shared household vision, and to look honestly at what was getting in the way. Participants reported more communication, more joint planning, and greater recognition of women’s economic contribution, including  paying for school tuition, buying food and clothing, and covering unexpected expenses.

One male participant described the shift more powerfully than any project summary could::

“Thanks to this training, I realized the value of letting my wife work—which is what I did—and as a result, she has started a business selling local products in neighboring villages. I encourage her to travel to the markets. When she’s away, I take care of the children. Thanks to her AGR, she was able to pay for our two daughters’ school tuition without having to wait until the start of the school year to come up with the money. I’m proud of her success and of the change in myself. Before, I was an obstacle. Today, I’ve become her ally. The Diamond of Equity has transformed the way we live as a couple.” (GALS participant, Guiba, June 2025)

Although much progress has been made, cooking and cleaning are still viewed by some men as taboo or emasculating, and fear of community judgment can be powerful. While the change is real, it also remains unfinished.

 

Community Participation: A Seat at the Meeting – and the Decision Table

GALS also addressed several practical dimensions of women’s economic empowerment, including participation in community groups and trainings, freedom to pursue income-generating activities, control over earnings, and a stronger role in household decisions.

Of the 225 women who initially described participation in community organizations as difficult, 206 said that the barriers had either disappeared or were actively being overcome. Among women already participating in groups, all reported being able to attend meetings and training sessions without restrictions.

Men reported movement too.  Of the 118 men who initially viewed their wives’ involvement in groups as a problem, 105 said they now supported their wives to create or join groups and participate fully. One participant explained what that looked like at home:

“This training enabled me to start my own business with my husband’s support; he gave me a market stall. We’ve pooled our resources, such as our chickens and small livestock. We now make financial decisions together, which strengthens the harmony and effectiveness of our relationship.” (GALS participant, June 2025)

Becoming more involved in their communities represented a pathway to greater financial independence and confidence for many women. Savings groups and training sessions provided opportunities to build skills, access resources, and connect with others pursuing similar goals. These networks also provided access to savings and credit mechanisms that enabled women to grow their poultry operations.

The Poultry Value Chain: Whose Chickens are They, Anyway?

 

Women have always done substantial work in Burkina Faso’s poultry sector. But care work is not the same as ownership. Before the intervention, many women fed and monitored poultry managed in their husbands’ names, while having limited control over sales, profits, or production decisions.

Participants reported meaningful shifts. More women gained permission and support to raise poultry themselves, own their flocks and equipment, and receive technical, logistical, or financial help from their husbands. In some households, women and men even marked their birds different (using paint or pieces of cloth) to make ownership clear.

“Before, it was very hard to get my husband to stay home… Plus, it was inconceivable for me to imagine raising poultry at home… But thanks to the ‘Journey Toward Your Vision’ program, … he gave me permission to start raising poultry, and he even helps me with it every day.” (GALS Champion ILBOUDO Sidnooma)

The commercial side of poultry farming has changed too. Women learned to keep simple accounts, calculate prices against costs and bird weight, plan production cycles, and choose when to sell. The evaluation also captured an important nuance, that while some women still involve their husbands in negotiations, it is not because they lack the skills, but rather out of a desire to manage household expectations and to protect progress.

That combination of greater ownership, stronger business skills, and negotiated household support mattered. It positioned women not simply as helpers in poultry production, but as producers and entrepreneurs in their own right.

 

What the Evidence Says

The results are encouraging. In the project’s comparative analysis, 66.8% of households participating in GALS reported access to at least three poultry-value-chain services, compared with 42.8% of project-participating households in villages where GALS was not implemented. Access to financial services and self-efficacy scores were also marginally higher among GALS participants, while findings on income control and decision-making were more mixed.

But standardized indicators tell only part of the story. GALS is deliberately process-oriented, where households define their own visions, negotiate change, and move at different speeds. A survey can count access to services or responses about decision-making, but it is less able to capture improved dialogue, reduced conflict, greater self-confidence, or a spouse becoming an ally.

Nor should GALS receive all of the credit. Some non-GALS villages performed as well as or better than GALS villages on certain indicators. Because SELEVER 2 combined GALS with EBENEs, AVEC groups, nutrition and hygiene training, and market systems work, the evidence suggests that GALS may have been a catalyst within that package, but not a stand-alone performance driver.

 

Considering a GALS Approach? Keep Three Things in Mind

 

•  Start with people, not the toolkit

Genuine local buy-in and participant-led problem solving are what make the approach adaptable. When literacy was a barrier, participants used audio recordings, help from children, and locally agreed symbols as memory aids. This is not a workaround at the margins; it is what good adaptation looks like.

• Design for real life

Availability (especially men’s availability), literacy, confidence, and local norms all shape who can participate and how. High-quality facilitation and enough time for reflection are not optional extras.

• Integrate rather than isolate

GALS can deepen market nutrition, finance, or livelihoods intervention, but it works best when linked to concrete opportunities and services. Economic inclusion and social change need to move together.

The largest lesson from Burkina Faso is that more income can open the door to change, but it does not decide who walks through it. When households have the tools and space to talk, plan, and act together, poultry production can progress from a livelihood to a platform for shared power and more resilient, healthy families.