Gender equality is essential to achieve FAO’s mandate of a world free from hunger, malnutrition and poverty. FAO is committed to achieving equality between women and men in sustainable agriculture and rural development for the elimination of hunger and poverty. The Markets and Trade Division (EST) contributes to FAO’s objective to ensure that women and men have equal rights and access to agrifood markets, trade and decent work, and equal control over the resulting income and benefits, in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  

EST provides technical support to Members Countries in the implementation of evidence-based gender-responsive programmes, policies, strategies, and practices to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in agrifood markets, value chains and trade. This support includes gender analyses, gender-sensitive knowledge generation and dissemination, sharing best practices, multistakeholder dialogues, and capacity-development initiatives, among others. These activities contribute to FAO’s goal to ensure that promoting gender equality and eliminating gender-based discriminations are effectively pursued at all levels of FAO’s work programme and organizational culture, in compliance with the FAO Policy on Gender Equality 2020-2030.