Task Force on Gender Equity

The World Banana Forum’s (WBF) Task Force on Gender Equity (GE-TF) was established in Ecuador following the First Global Meeting of Women Banana Representatives in 2012, preceding the Second Conference of the World Banana Forum.

Objectives

  • Contribute to a better understanding of gender issues and realities faced by female workers along the global banana supply chain.
  • Ensure that women representatives of the global banana industry participate and are active in all decision-making processes that affect them.
  • Ensure that gender equity is a cross-cutting theme across the various activities of the WBF.
  • Support collective action to achieve gender equity within the global banana industry.

Priorities and activities

FAO, together with members of the GE-TF, established five key priority areas and works streams under the task force, namely:

  1. Women’s empowerment
  2. Women’s employment opportunities
  3. Health and safety of women workers
  4. Violence and harassment
  5. Gender pay gap

The GE-TF meets at least six times a year to discuss the above priorities and joint actions to be implemented. In addition, to facilitate discussions on the challenges facing women workers in the banana industry, as well as the progress made and the best practices under these priority areas, the WBF organizes International Multi-Stakeholder Meetings on Gender Equity in the Banana Industry. Three meeting have been held since 2012, the last of which was held in 2017 together with the Third Global Conference of the WBF. The next meeting is expected to be held together with the Fourth Global Conference at the end of 2023.

The GE-TF ultimately supports knowledge generation activities to better understand the realities of women workers of the banana industry, at regional and global scales. In 2014, FAO, through the WBF, funded a series of publications titled, Women in the Banana Export Industry, which entailed a Global Overview and regional reports for Latin America, West and Central Africa, and the Caribbean. The findings from these reports have been useful to shape the priorities of the GE-TF above.

The Task Force also works to support concrete efforts and activities to advance on its priority areas. In addition, following the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to give continuity to the work of the GE-TF, the WBF has further organized a series of webinars on the various challenges and risks related to gender equity in the banana industry.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the Task Force on Gender Equity, please email Camila Reinhardt at [email protected], Victor Prada at [email protected] and/or the WBF Secretariat at [email protected].