This FAO evidence platform provides evidence and tools to support governments and stakeholders in the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
To find relevant documents for a VGFSyN recommendation, select a focus area from the left menu and the sub-focus area of your interest. You will be redirected to a page listing all relevant VGFSyN recommendations. Select a recommendation to access the links to the relevant online documents
Focus Area VI
Gender equality and women's empowerment across food systems
This focus area highlights the importance of improving women’s wellbeing, ensuring direct access to financial, technical and biophysical resources, improving and enabling agency and participation in decision-making, and balancing the power relationships and overcoming legal impediments that limit equality and choices. It provides guidance on: empowering women and recognizing and addressing women’s nutritional status and deprivation.
3.6.1 Empowering women
The four digit numbering of each recommendation follows the numbering in the VGFSyN, whereby the first digit represents the chapter 3 of the document that includes the 105 recommendations, the second digit the focus area, the third digit the sub-focus
area and the letter the specific recommendation.
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Recommendation 3.6.1.a
Governments should ensure equal opportunities and promote equal participation between women and men in policy decision-making, supporting women especially in rural context, and ensuring gender equality in leadership roles in decision making bodies – parliaments, ministries and local authorities at district and community levels. Governments and stakeholders should foster strategies to engage with men and boys to support women and girls in nutrition as a joint responsibility.
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Recommendation 3.6.1.b
Governments should promote an enabling environment to generate social, economic and cultural changes towards gender equality with specific gender responsive policies, programmes, institutions which should include adaptation of public services to support women, and advocacy campaigns to deal with the various forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, particularly in rural areas. This should include the active engagement of men and ensuring access to adequate support services for women.
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Recommendation 3.6.1.c
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society, particularly women’s organizations and other relevant stakeholders should promote the empowerment of women and girls by supporting equitable and equal access to primary and secondary education, literacy programmes, comprehensive health services and other social services to increase household nutritional status.