Recent national agricultural and rural policy frameworks incorporate gender considerations. In the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, governments have focused on addressing structural inequalities in access to land, inputs, finance, services and technology.

An analysis conducted using the Gender in Agricultural Policies (GAPo) assessment tool of over 300 agricultural-related policies from 40 low- and middle-income countries shows that gender issues are widely recognized but less frequently translated into concrete policy action. Of the analyzed policy documents, 69 percent acknowledge women’s roles or constraints in agriculture, and 53 percent propose specific measures to address gender inequality or support women’s empowerment. Yet, many of these measures remain too broadly framed and often emphasize inclusion without specifying implementation mechanisms, target groups or activities. Only 18 percent of policies identify gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) as explicit policy objectives and demonstrate higher levels of gender responsiveness across other quality criteria. 

Significant differentiation also emerges in relation to budgeting, monitoring, and institutional capacity. While 29 percent of policies support the use of sex-disaggregated data, only 23 percent include gender-sensitive indicators in monitoring and evaluation. Among the policies with defined budgets, fewer than one in three include gender-responsive budget lines. Institutional dimensions are similarly uneven: only 23 percent of documents refer to strengthening gender-related institutional capacities, and 16 percent mention women’s participation in policy formulation or decision-making processes.  

Only a few countries demonstrate more consistent operationalization of gender commitments. Malawi stands out for integrating gender objectives, budget lines, monitoring mechanisms and institutional measures across multiple agricultural policies. Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania also show comparatively strong performance in selected areas, including gender-responsive budgeting, monitoring frameworks and institutional strengthening.  Costa Rica and Guatemala demonstrate similar patterns, including gender-sensitive budgets and indicators in sectoral policies.  

Overall, the GAPo findings indicate that while gender considerations are increasingly reflected in agricultural policies, their translation into specific measures, financing, monitoring systems and institutional arrangements remains limited. Policies that explicitly prioritize GEWE provide clear evidence that more comprehensive and operational integration of gender dimensions is achievable within agricultural policy frameworks, contributing to more inclusive and sustainable agrifood systems.  

SDG Indicator 5.a.2 assesses whether national legal frameworks ensure equal rights to land ownership, control and inheritance, and women’s participation in land-related decision-making.  This indicator provides a standardized legal assessment and data framework that countries can use to inform national reporting and monitoring under international human rights treaties, support policy dialogue and reform, and for reporting implementation under a range of international human rights instruments, including CEDAW, CRC, CRPD, and ILO Convention No. 169. 

SDG 5.a.2 processes, supported by FAO as the custodian agency, have supported sustained policy dialogues globally, resulting in recent legal and policy reforms in several countries, including Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Guinea, Mozambique, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and the United Republic of Tanzania. The work embeds women’s land rights within broader governance and policy reform agendas and benefits other vulnerable groups including Indigenous peoples, youth and persons with disabilities.