المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

أسهم هذا العضو في:

    • Women’s work burden and time poverty

      Flavia Grassi and Johanna Schmidt, FAO

      Thank you very much for interesting and valuable contributions to this online discussion. As IFAD colleague, Hazel Bedford and Nitya Rao, School of International Development and LANSA, pointed out: one of the main challenges that rural women and girls are facing today, is women’s time burden, and that a large amount of women’s work remain unpaid and unrecognized. That is, at the production, household and community level. The competing demands linked to this triple role, affect not only women’s capacity to better engage in businesses and farming, but they also affect their health, decision-making, and the whole household, including children and youth.

      So how can we address these challenges? A key is to encourage the collection of sex-disaggregated labour and time use data, to make women’s contributions visible and promote evidence-based policy formulation. An example of this is a recent case-study on aquaculture in Bangladesh and Indonesia, highlighting women’s contributions to the sector.

      Another important step to reduce women’s work burden, is to promote labor-saving technologies and practices (LSTs). FAO has very successfully introduced several LSTs, for example Fish Drying Technologies and Kitchen Gardens. There are also many integrated agro-aquaculture-livestock practices which include labour-saving solutions (for example fish integrated in rice fields considerably reduce weeding requirements).

      However, what might be even more effective is to address one of the main root causes: household dynamics and prevailing discriminatory gender norms. A successful example on gender transformative efforts is the project Engaging Men, carried out by CARE in Burundi. A recent FAO publication on time-use in Viet Nam, also explores how gender norms affect labour and access to productive inputs, technologies and services. Based on these findings and in response to Question 3, the following recommendations should be taken into account:

      - Challenge gender norms by encouraging discussions and the promotion and redistribution of work-burden at the household level

      - Support inclusive community dialogue to identify needs and strengthen technology development

      - Support women’s needs of training, technology and services

      Finally, supporting capacity development of implementing national partners and extension service providers, is crucial to raise awareness and to make a change. For additional information  on women’s time burden, please also see one of FAO’s flagship publication on the topic, Running out of time.

       

      Flavia Grassi, Senior Gender and Development Expert, FAO

      Johanna Schmidt, Gender Consultant, FAO