Gender
Empowering women and achieving gender equality
FAO works with member states and partners to design and implement gender-equitable laws and policies and gender-transformative programmes. Priority actions include, among others: increasing women’s access to and control over productive resources; developing gender-sensitive value chains; investing in labour-saving technologies; and addressing gender issues in climate change adaptation and resilience building.
Key messages
Closing the gender gap in farm productivity and the wage gap in agrifood system employment would increase global gross domestic product by nearly USD 1 trillion and reduce the number of food-insecure people by 45 million.
If half of small-scale producers benefited from development interventions which focused on empowering women, it would significantly raise the incomes of an additional 58 million people and increase the resilience of an additional 235 million people.
Increasing their empowerment has a positive impact on their wellbeing, agricultural production, food security, diets and the nutrition of children.
This is key to improving the design and effectiveness of programming and policy in terms of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Inclusive and gender-responsive laws and policies require addressing multiple and intersecting forms of inequalities, and power imbalances in agrifood systems.
Featured resources
FAO Framework on Inclusion
2025
The FAO Framework on Inclusion aims to increase awareness of the importance of implementing inclusive interventions, approaches and processes; to provide...
Intersectionality: A pathway for more inclusive, youth-oriented and gender-responsive agrifood systems
2024
This publication serves as a guide for FAO personnel and development practitioners who seek conceptual clearance and guidance on intersectionality....
Protection issues faced by women farmers in Pakistan - Study and strategy solutions
2024
The study analyses the linkages between women’s livelihoods, nutrition, literacy and child protection issues vis-à-vis rural women’s understandings...
Gender equality and social inclusion for youth organizations – Methodological guidelines
2024
These guidelines are a practical tool for youth organizations to better understand gender equality and social inclusion and their importance. They offer...
Rural women and financial inclusion - Technical guidance note
2024
Improving the gender-responsiveness of the design and delivery of rural finance interventions through innovative approaches and mechanisms is important...
The unjust climate - Measuring the impacts of climate change on rural poor, women and youth
2024
This report assembles an impressive set of data from 24 low- and middle-income countries in five world regions to measure the effects of climate change...
Gender equality and social inclusion for youth organizations – Methodological guidelines
2024
Youth networks and organizations of young farmers, producers and entrepreneurs play a central role as partners in development initiatives that target...
Guidelines for measuring gender transformative change in the context of food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture
2023
These Guidelines include step-by-step guidance to formulate qualitative and quantitative indicators of gender transformative change to help gender experts...
The status of women in agrifood systems
2023
The status of women in agrifood systems report uses extensive new data and analyses to provide a comprehensive picture of women’s participation, benefits,...
Resilience to food insecurity and gender differential decomposition in the Gambia. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 23-02
2023
The analysis of household resilience to food insecurity has become a key technical and evidence-based policy instrument for better tailoring development...
Policy orientations for food security resilience with gender sensitivity in the Gambia FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief 63
2023
This brief summarizes the findings of the working paper Resilience to food insecurity and gender differential decomposition in the Gambia, which aims...
Addressing gender equality in sustainable soil management. A technical guide for policymakers and field practitioners
2023
This technical guide for addressing gender equality in Sustainable Soil Management (SSM) is designed to provide an easily accessible and understandable...
Cash transfers and women's economic inclusion
2022
This is the policy brief of a paper that investigates whether an increase in exogenous income through the Child Grants model of the Social Cash Transfer...
Data snapshot using sex-disaggregated data to better understand gender gaps in agriculture
2022
The brochure provides data disaggregated by sex on various issues under the following topics: Small family farms and women's decision-making roles...
Economic inclusion and social protection to reduce poverty. Rural women’s economic empowerment
2021
This action sheet is part of a series of action sheets developed under the seven key priority areas of the FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery program,...
Seizing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area for the economic empowerment of women in agriculture
2021
The links between gender, trade, agriculture, and food security are inherently complex and difficult to generalize. It is therefore vital that the operationalization...
Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture and food systems - A handbook for gender focal points
2021
Gender focal points are part of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAOs) institutional architecture for gender, and play a key role in supporting...
Rural Women and Girls 25 years after Beijing: critical agents of positive change
2021
Globally, and with only a few exceptions, rural and indigenous women fare worse than rural men and urban women and men on every indicator for which...
Supporting an enabling legal environment for women’s empowerment in food and agriculture
2021
Empowerment is the “expansion of people’s ability to make strategic life choices” (Kabeer, 1999). According to the UN, women’s empowerment has five...
Gender-responsive digitalization. A critical component of the COVID-19 response in Africa
2021
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments on social distancing and mobility restrictions have contributed to boosting the use of digital...
Sustainable Development Goals
Our work on this theme primarily contributes to:
