Empowering Women to End Hunger

 

Empowering Women to End Hunger

15 March 2016, Church Center of the United Nations

Carla Mucavi, FAO LON Director

 

                                                                                                                      

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

I would like to begin by thanking United Methodist Women, NGO Working Group on Food and Hunger, and Grassroots International, for organizing such an interesting and timely discussion on the importance of empowering women to end hunger.

 

As most of you know, last September the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, part of an ambitious and transformative Agenda which aims to make the world a better and more equal place by 2030. SDG2 on ending hunger, and SDG5 on gender equality, are among the 17 Goals which are critically important in achieving this Agenda. Those gathered around the room today – including the exceptional panellists who come from diverse backgrounds and expertise – will be instrumental in moving this Agenda forward.

 

FAO fully understands the significant role of women in ending hunger, and the integration of gender issues is among the cross-cutting themes which touch every part of the Organization’s work.

 

Women play a major role in rural economies, where the large majority of the world’s poor live and where fighting hunger and poverty is most critical. In addition, they are central to family food security and nutrition, as they are generally responsible for food selection and preparation and for the care and feeding of children.  

 

However, despite making up almost half of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, women face significant challenges in owning land and accessing productive resources. Women are less likely than men to own land or livestock, adopt new technologies, access credit or other financial services, or receive education or extension advice.

 

Numerous studies underscore the social costs of rural women's lack of education and assets, linking it directly to high rates of under nutrition and infant mortality. There are also high economic costs: wasted human capital and low labour productivity that stifle rural development and progress in agriculture, and ultimately threaten food security – both for women and men.

 

Closing the gender gap in agriculture would generate significant gains for the agriculture sector and for society. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent, which means more people fed and less people hungry.  

 

In a world where almost 800 million people remain undernourished, empowering women not only makes social and economic sense, it is an essential element in our efforts to end hunger and attain a food secure future.

 

Gender equality is central to FAO’s mandate to achieve food security for all by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and natural resource management, and improving the lives of rural populations. To address this, FAO has adopted a Policy on Gender Equality (2013), which provides the Organization with a framework for guiding its efforts to achieve gender equality in all its technical work. Under the policy, FAO works closely with member countries to achieve the following five objectives:  

 

1. The equal   participation   of   women   and  men  as   decision-makers  in  rural  institutions  and  in  shaping  laws,  policies and programmes;
2. Equal   access   for   women   and   men   to   productive resources, assets, decent employment opportunities and income;
3. Equal access for women and men to goods and services for agricultural development and to markets;
4. The reduction of women’s work burden through the provision of improved technologies, services and infrastructure; and
5. An increased  share  of  total  agricultural  aid  committed  to projects that target women and promote gender equality

 

In addition, FAO has adopted gender mainstreaming in all of its strategic objectives, and designs and implements programmes and projects that specifically target women. This includes investing in the strengthening of member countries’ capacity to develop, analyse and use sex-disaggregated data, incorporating gender analysis in the formulation of all field programmes and projects, and allocating financial resources to women-specific targeted interventions.

 

For example, through capacity building and access to more reliable data, FAO has promoted gender-sensitive policy and planning in 30 countries. Botswana and Namibia have adopted national action plans for food security, which seek to eliminate inequalities in women's access to productive resources. FAO's technical assistance contributed to mainstreaming gender in Chile's agricultural policy and helped to increase the use of gender statistics by policymakers in China.

 

In closing, gender equality is a fundamental human right at the very heart of the Sustainable Development Goals. FAO believes that these efforts simultaneously work towards gender equality and support women’s diverse roles in agriculture and rural development, empowering women to end hunger.

 

Thank you for inviting me to be with you all this morning, and I look forward to hearing from the upcoming panellists.