FAO at the Arab Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025: Goal 5 – Gender equality

Sarina Abdysheva, FAO Office of Sustainable Development Goals, delivered an statement at the Arab Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 review session on ''Goal 5 – Gender equality".

Women perform key functions in agrifood systems. They are involved in agriculture, off-farm agrifood system employment, natural resource management, and unpaid domestic and care work.  Their knowledge and activities contribute significantly to food security, nutrition, biodiversity and rural development in general. Women in the NENA region perform 4.7 times more unpaid care work than men, marking the highest female-to-male ratio globally.

Women continue to face considerable barriers to accessing resources, technology, education, training and economic opportunities. Empowering women in agrifood systems is an economic imperative. FAO estimates that closing the gender gap in farm productivity could boost global GDP by nearly USD 1 trillion and reduce food insecurity for 45 million people (FAO, 2023).

Women remain significantly disadvantaged in secure access to land, with negative consequences for their income, wellbeing and food security. In the NENA region, estimates reveal that women regionally own less than 7 percent of agricultural land.

Women have less access to financial services and the major constraints include lack of income or assets usable as collateral, lack of specific training and education needed to run businesses, and gender-discriminatory social norms and practices. Adequate policies, regulations and gender transformative business models are required. Major gaps remain in the availability of policy-relevant data on women’s access to resources and services, nutrition, and climate-change adaptation and resilience.

Women engaged in agrifood systems are disproportionately affected by climate change and other shocks including conflict. Estimates indicate that female-headed households lose 8 % more of their income due to heat stress and 3 % more due to floods compared to male-headed households, leading to losses totalling billions of dollars annually. Climate policies need to pay extra attention to gender equality and women’s empowerment, recognizing the special needs of young women and marginalized groups such as indigenous women, women with disabilities, and elderly women.

Conflict and protracted crises remain the main drivers of food insecurity, and there is a gendered impact of conflict and protracted crises, with women and girls being disproportionately affected by humanitarian emergencies and displacements. Evidence indicates that one in every four women and girls experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023, and this figure rose to one in two women and girls suffering from food insecurity in conflict-affected zones.