#SheFeedstheWorld – Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment for a Food Secure World
19 November 2020, Washington DC – Women are a critical force in agriculture and food systems worldwide. However, they are disproportionately affected by hunger and malnutrition. As producers, women have less access to resources, assets, and access to credit. To raise awareness about how empowering women brings us closer to our goals of eradicating hunger, ensuring food security and eliminating all forms of malnutrition, FAO North America and CARE USA hosted a virtual Congressional Briefing. The session featured Senator John Boozman of Arkansas, Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and experts from FAO, CARE USA, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We cannot achieve inclusive and sustainable food systems, eliminate hunger and malnutrition, or achieve sustainable development without women’s empowerment and gender equity,” underscored Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America in his opening remarks. FAO estimates that if women had access to the same productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent, and this, in turn, could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent, Sharan cited.
“For every US$1 USD 1 we invest in women and food security, communities see a US$31 return on investment,” said Maureen Miruka, Director for Gender, Youth and Livelihoods at CARE USA. “Gender equality can unlock the potential of women farmers who are otherwise overlooked by the system.”
Senator Boozman was pleased by the focus on women’s empowerment. “All of the data says that if you empower women, make it such that they do well, children do well, communities do well, states and countries do well,” said Senator Boozman. He highlighted the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment (WEEE) Act of 2018 and noted that global food security and women’s empowerment have bipartisan support. Congress is currently working on an additional bill to respond to the challenges brought on by COVID-19.
Congresswoman Houlahan warned that “crises such as COVID-19 will exacerbate inequalities and inequities that already existed previously.” Even before COVID-19, women and girls made-up 60 percent of the population facing chronic hunger, she noted quoting the 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report (SOFI 2020). The pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout are having a disproportionate impact on women and girls. “We need people across the gender spectrum to be united to enact policy and elevate those who are marginalized,” she urged. Congresswoman Houlahan is currently leading a bipartisan effort to increase funding for bilateral nutrition assistance programs to treat and prevent malnutrition.
“Women are more food insecure than men on every continent,” emphasized Susan Kaaria, Senior Gender Officer at FAO, who provided an overview of FAO’s work on gender. Especially when it comes to land rights, regardless of the indicators used such as ownership, management or transfer rights, women are significantly more disadvantaged than men, Kaaria explained. Through the Gender Land Rights Database, FAO highlights major political, legal and cultural factors that influence the realization of women’s land rights. FAO is also the custodian of the Sustainable Development Goal indicator 5.1 and 5.2 on women’s land rights.
FAO’s policy on gender equality guides the Organization’s cross-cutting work on gender, Kaaria explained. Additionally, through the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), FAO promotes gender equality in all voluntary guidelines. At the global level, FAO has provided 70 countries with gender assessments and policy guidance.
In conclusion, Kaaria underlined that “you cannot act on only one issue. Women face intersecting disadvantages. We must have an integrated approach acting at the individual, institutional and policy level, and make sure that we tackle socio-cultural norms that perpetuate inequalities.”
Melissa Kaplan, Senior Policy Advocate, Food Security and Nutrition at CARE USA highlighted CARE’s report entitled Left Out and Left Behind, which stressed the importance of tackling gender inequality in COVID-19 response efforts. “Despite the significant roles women play in food systems global responses to COVID-19 and related hunger crises were either ignoring women and girls or treating them as victims who have no role in addressing the problems that they face,” said Kaplan. She emphasized that the US Congress can promote food security and gender equality by ensuring funding for food security and nutrition accounts; reauthorizing the Global Food Security Act; including food security and nutrition in supplemental COVID-19 bills; and ensuring funding for key multilateral organizations such as FAO.
“Boosting women's empowerment is one of our highest priorities in USAID’s Feed the Future initiative because simply put, women are key to our ultimate goal ending poverty, hunger and malnutrition,” said Maura Barry, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security. She explained that USAID is focused on narrowing the persistent gender gap in the adoption of agricultural technologies and practices through research, extension and advisory services that integrate gender needs and priorities and by addressing constraints that women face in accessing credit and assets. She noted USAID’s support for the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment that is being developed by CFS.
As COVID-19 exposed the vulnerability and inequality in our food system, as well as the disproportionate impacts women and girls among other marginalized communities face, this timely briefing underscored why empowering women and closing the gender gap is central to addressing global food security and nutrition and why women need to be at the center of COVID-19 response efforts.
Further information:
Watch a recording of the webinar
Susan Kaaria’s presentation on FAO’s work on Gender: https://bit.ly/FAOGenderPPT
Social media thread: https://twitter.com/FAONorthAmerica/status/1329513245284200448
CARE Policy Report on “Left Out and Left Behind: Ignoring Women Will Prevent Us From Solving the Hunger Crisis”
CARE Report on “Sometimes We Don’t Even Eat - How Conflict and COVID-19 Are Pushing Millions of People to the Brink”