Gender mainstreaming in FAO’s work to close gender gaps in agriculture
Gender equality is central to the mandate of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to achieve food security for all by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and natural resource management, and improving the lives of rural populations.
Current data indicate that about 45 percent of the world’s population depends on agriculture, forestry, fishing or hunting for its livelihood. Globally women constitute about 50 percent of the agricultural labour force, producing a large portion of the world’s food crops.
In its quest to reduce gender inequalities in the agriculture sector, FAO developed the Policy on Gender Equality in 2012.
In order to improve gender mainstreaming in FAO’s work, a capacity development workshop was organized for programme and Gender Focal Points in FAO country offices in Africa, to provide them with adequate knowledge and tools in gender integration to allow them to effectively adhere to the objectives and minimum standards in all their interventions.
Gender Focal Points support gender work at country level by raising gender awareness amongst colleagues and national partners, providing advice and disseminating available knowledge and tools to integrate gender issues into FAO’s work.
FAO Representative, Gualbert Gbehounou, acknowledged that the training was another step to achieve our goal of “leaving no one behind” and make FAO’s interventions contribute to close gender gaps in our countries.
“Gender focal points have been instrumental in this effort to mainstream gender and to make sure that our commitment, our wealth of experience and expertise in this field is used to foster innovation, collect, develop and disseminate new ideas to continuously improve our Gender competence,” he noted.
Participants were drawn from English and French speaking African countries where FAO has operations. The training that took place from 20 - 28 November 2019.
FAO is also enhancing the capacity of rural women to engage in and benefit more from profitable value chains, and to engage with policy makers and other relevant actors to foster gender equality and women’s empowerment in areas associated with land, labor saving technologies, advisory services, financial resources and rural employment.
Contact:
Teopista Mutesi | Communications Specialist | Email: [email protected] OR [email protected]