Empowering women and girls and the recognition and respect of their rights is critical to secure, sustainable and equitable global food systems. A Nov. 23 virtual discussion, co-hosted by IFPRI and the World Economic Forum (WEF), identified evidence on what works in advancing those goals and how food systems transformation can also contribute to to gender equality. The event was part of the WEF meeting Bold Actions for Food as a Force for Good, held in advance of the UN Food Systems Summit in September.
While ‘‘gender equality and food systems are mutually supportive, gender equality remains a major goal in many regions, and closing current existing gender gaps and transforming some of the underlying courses of gender equality is urgently needed,’’ said IFPRI Director for Africa Jemimah Njuki,who is also Custodian of the UN summit’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Lever.
Women and girls face many obstacles, she said, as their access to land rights and property is very limited, and ‘’these inequalities are not only affecting women but are also affecting household food security and nutrition.’’
“Women and girls are involved in food systems transformation, but they should also have access to benefits, and be empowered for an inclusive food system transformation,” Njuki said. Multi-stakeholder action is necessary so that ‘’as food systems undergo transformation, they are not just sustainable, but they are also equitable and inclusive.’’
Panelists shared their experiences on gender equality and women’s empowerment across the globe.
In India, impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic and lockdown have fallen heavily on women and food systems, said Reema Nanavaty, Executive Director of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). A SEWA internal survey found that women’s food insecurity has risen along with with declines in the quantity of food and household income, an anticipated higher dropout rate among high school girls, and that men’s violence and abuse of women and girls was occurring in 25% of households.
These problems did not stop women from rising to meet pandemic’s challenges, she said. For example, through the use of digital technologies, some sell and deliver fruits and vegetables door to door. To support them, SEWA has ‘’linked procurement of their fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers,” Nanavaty said. “Altogether 45,000 vendors and vegetable growers are now setting up their e-enterprises.’’
Women’s leadership and full participation are essential to achieve gender equality in the food systems transformation process during the current global health crisis, because ‘’women play an important role in agriculture, in household food security and nutrition as food producers, farm managers, processors, traders, wage-workers and entrepreneurs,’’ said Susan Kaaria, Senior Gender Officer with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). ‘’For these reasons, gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the core of FAO’s work to eradicate hunger and poverty.’’
FAO and its partners are developing and promoting the implementation of Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment that provide policy recommendations and guidance that can be used by governments and partners in developing strategies, policies, laws, and programs, Kaaria said.
CARE USA is also playing an important role in some African countries by working ‘’to move beyond economic empowerment and focus on approaches and methodologies that are going to transform the discriminatory social norms looking at both the formal and informal spheres and areas of change,’’ said Maureen Miruka, the organization’s Director of Gender, Youth & Livelihoods, Food and Water Systems. She added that organizations should engage men and boys, as they have a crucial role to play in building gender equality and women’s empowerment in the agriculture sector and food system. “The role that men can play is changing the power relations in the household and social networks and in decision making regarding access to resources such as land,’’ she said.
IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Agnes Quisumbing noted that “women are already involved in food systems as consumers and as those who are most often responsible for their households’ food and nutrition security.” Working with 13 agricultural development projects to find out what works on the ground, she said, IFPRI researchers have developed the reach-benefit-empower framework to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies to promote gender equity in food systems.
The private sector is also playing a crucial role to boost women’s empowerment. PepsiCo is supporting women on the ground in Latin America by supplying agricultural products to farmers who are integrating gender equality in their production process, said PepsiCo Latin America CEO Paula Santilli. The company also purchases from women producers on a preferential basis and provides agricultural training.
Empowering women in the food systems transformation process requires sustained efforts, panelists agreed—including creating social movements around the world to advocate women’s land rights, enhancing women’s leadership and voices, involving men to transform gender norms, and recognizing women as farmers.
‘’These bold actions are the beginning of a journey towards having a vision for equitable food systems and mobilizing actions around achieving that vision,” Njuki concluded.
Sokhna Sall Seck is a Communications Specialist with IFPRI’s West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCAO) in Dakar. This post also appears on the WCAO blog.
