Making Food Systems Work for Women and Girls

Stark gender inequalities are both a cause and outcome of unsustainable food systems and unjust food access, consumption, and production ^[1]. Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems can result in greater food security and better nutrition, and in more just, resilient, and sustainable food systems for all. Evidence shows unequal access and rights to resources in food systems, undermine women’s empowerment and productivity ^[2].

This differing level of access is shaped and reinforced by contextual social and gender norms. Harmful social and gender norms and practices shape the gendered distribution of paid and unpaid work, limit women’s access to and control of productive resources, assets, and access to services, and undermine women’s leadership potential from local to global scales. ^[3] They also facilitate exploitation and violence. This is compounded through the denial of rights and through formal and informal institutions and laws. There is widespread and systematic institutional and legislative discrimination and bias against women in access to resources, assets, services, and freedoms such as land, water, finance, markets, education, extension, employment, mobility, inputs, social protection, leadership, and more. Gender gaps in land tenure are particularly stark – between 70% and 90% of landowners in most countries are men ^[4] and as many as 29 countries deny female surviving spouses and daughters the same rights as their male counterparts to inherit land and non-land assets. ^[5] Women face disproportionate barriers in accessing finance and credit options compared with men ^{[6] [7]} This dual problem of harmful gender norms and the denial of women’s rights, which has been exacerbated by COVID-19, affects women and girls across the globe. Further, women in food systems are not a homogenous group and can face multiple and compounding forms of discrimination, requiring intersectional analysis and policy response.

Unequal food systems also result in women and girls being more vulnerable to chronic food and nutrition insecurity as well as shock-induced food insecurity. A scoping review for the Science group ^[8] aimed to elucidate evidence and identify evidence gaps for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems. The review showed that context-specific pathways link women’s empowerment to important outcomes, such as household nutrition and dietary diversity, noting that these pathways may vary between and within contexts. This coalition aims to address these multiple barriers, building women’s agency, increasing access and rights to resources and addressing the policy, institutional and legislative barriers as well shifting harmful and constraining norms. Gender transformative approaches are especially critical to address the interconnected layers of inequity and discrimination in food systems, including the inequalities in labour, assets (including financial), and leadership, as described above.