I was one of the commentators who pointed out that excluding the LGBT+ community from the guidelines undermined the validity of the call for human rights and gender equality. I appreciate that our voices were acknowledged by FAO. At the same time, there were two disturbing aspects to the justification for leaving out true intersectionality: a. that LGBT+ issues were not included in the original TOR and b. that there are no internationally recognized terms. To these responses, I would point out that in many places in the world, the empowerment of cis-gendered, heterosexual women and girls is also contestable. By definition human rights, in particular full intersexual gender inclusion, isn't popular in places and cultures where oppression is the norm (Texas, in the US, for example). My point is, if we wait until the LGBT+ community is acceptable in all member countries, we will be waiting until the end of the world. In our daily work, it is reasonable to frame specific project goals in incremental steps, I do this all the time. However, in voluntary, but aspirational documents like this one, this is the place to articulate what human rights really means: equal rights and fair treatment to even the most unpopular of gender minorities. Being brave right now is very hard and also unavoidably necessary.
Two key points are missing from this document and their inclusion would substantially improve the guidelines.
First, there is no mention of energy use or energy poverty in the context of food security. I work with a team based in East Africa where there is a direct relationship between lack of access to cooking fuels (generally firewood and charcoal), gender, and food insecurity. The connections between energy, food insecurity, and gender are complex but I would recommend the work of my chief collaborator Dr. Mary Njenga, based at CIFOR-ICRAF, who has been working on this issue in all of its nuance for many years.
The second issue is perhaps more controversial. In the first paragraph of the introduction the guidelines state reference "gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment" as the critical contributing variable under consideration. This phrasing indicates that gender equality is not identical to women's and girls' empowerment but rather is something larger and more inclusive. Unfortunately, over the course of the document it becomes clear that while men and boys may be included in gender equity considerations, gender minorities are not. To be blunt, this document like so many others of its type makes an impassioned plea for gender equality and gender transformation on human rights grounds and then fails to include those who are not cis-gendered, heterosexual, or gender conforming.
I recognize that in many regions of the world, including large portions of Europe and the United States, inclusive conceptions of intersectional gender categories are deeply unpopular. At the same time, using the language of human rights, social transformation, and social justice in guidelines that fail to mention the existence of gender minorities opens the gender-inclusive community up to valid accusations of hypocrisy. Rather than a call for equality, documents written as this one is, increase the isolation of gender minorities around the world. We can and must do better.
Dr. Ruth Mendum
I am a rural sociologist and gender integration specialist working primarily in East Africa on food insecurity and biomass energy and energy poverty more generally. This conversation is critically important and I am honored to contribute.
In my professional experience working in East Africa and elsewhere, there is a substantial missing piece when we think about the creation and sharing of knowledge. First, there is the assumption that scientific inquiry is in and of itself sufficient for the formation of policy, leaving out the reality that the issues of key importance to the lab-based sciences may or may not answer the needs of policymakers and communities. Secondly, there is an assumption made that knowledge flows in one direction: lab to policy to communities when in fact complex problems such as the ones we currently face require input and expertise from multiple sources. Finally, culture matters. What I mean by that is that each of us participating in the knowledge generation process is a product of cultural assumptions and habits. Natural scientists who study technical issues, say soil science just as an example, are not equipped, nor do they have the time, to be experts on socio/cultural conditions and the interaction between natural science findings and every local circumstance where that work might be applied. There is a deep need to include social scientists and humanities scholars as well as community members in the research and policymaking process. Moreover, in East Africa where I work at least, virtually no support is offered for basic social science and cultural investigations of agricultural and rural communities. Local languages are seldom taught, leaving those who speak them cut off from the scholarly community and sometimes even the policymakers in their own country, just as an example.
If there was one major contribution the FAO could make to link different types of knowledge together for the improvement of food and agriculture innovation, it would be to fund and sponsor transdisciplinary research and polity teams to study and collaborate with communities and governments to understand local and regional needs and search for appropriate responses. Scientific innovation is critical to policymaking but it is only one pillar in a successful change process. We must even be aware that ideas that look great in the lab may be inappropriate at the grassroots level.
It goes without saying but I will say it anyway, East Africa where I work is full of brilliant young people who could be part of this process if there was international support for research and research translation employment by East Africans. I am all in favor of international collaboration but at the same time, building a research career in East Africa for citizens of African nations, is very difficult. Teaching burdens at universities and dependence on short-term funding at research organizations mean that many serious voices move to the Global North or non-research careers for financial security reasons. This reality makes the kind of policy interface I have described even more challenging to achieve.