Empowering
women at every level of society would dramatically reduce hunger and
malnutrition, according to a top UN official
The notion that gender equality can play an important role in reducing hunger and malnutrition has gained increasing traction in development circles.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation claimed in its 2010-11 State of Food and Agriculture report that equal access to agricultural resources could reduce world hunger by 12-17%.
Gender and food security also came under the spotlight in the 2012 edition of the World Bank's flagship annual report, where it was argued that parity in areas including land rights, employment and political representation could improve development outcomes.
The notion that gender equality can play an important role in reducing hunger and malnutrition has gained increasing traction in development circles.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation claimed in its 2010-11 State of Food and Agriculture report that equal access to agricultural resources could reduce world hunger by 12-17%.
Gender and food security also came under the spotlight in the 2012 edition of the World Bank's flagship annual report, where it was argued that parity in areas including land rights, employment and political representation could improve development outcomes.
These ideas
are not new. Obliged to raise children, care for sick and elderly people, and
run households – work that, valued in monetary terms, would be equivalent to 15%
of GDP in low-income countries, rising to 35% in middle-income countries – it
has long been argued that women are being denied education opportunities,
marginalising them both economically and politically. The challenge lies in
convincing policymakers to do something about these multiple challenges.
So, given
the task of exploring the issues surrounding gender and food security, what
fresh impetus could Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right
to food, lend the debate?
Well, for a
start he hopes to persuade governments of the need for wholesale change at
every level of society. "We must address how gender roles are being
defined within the family and who makes the decisions in government," says
De Schutter.
"We
must refuse to take existing gender roles as givens, and instead allow women to
shift the burden to men where possible, giving women access to more
opportunities and better training and education, and exposure to something
other than the traditional responsibilities they have been assuming."
One way of
achieving this, De Schutter suggests, would be to offer access to education and
business training for women participating in public works programmes. Another
would be to make cash transfer mechanisms and healthcare initiatives
conditional on fathers undertaking childcare training, where the importance of
adequate nutrition for pregnant women and young children could be impressed
upon them.
Crucially,
says De Schutter, discrimination against women as food producers must be ended.
Female farmers must be given equal access to land, extension services, credit
and other resources so that they have greater opportunity and choice.
"Women who want to succeed as commercial farmers do not have the same
opportunities as men, and women who want to remain in small-scale family
farming find it very difficult because of the burdens they shoulder," he
says.
States must
also invest more in women, argues De Schutter – not so much by finding new
money, which may be difficult in the economic climate, as by channelling
existing resources more effectively.
De
Schutter's big idea – outlined in his Gender and Food Security (pdf) report,
which was submitted to the human rights council on Monday – is to persuade
governments that the empowerment and education of women is a secret weapon
against food insecurity, a low-cost way to significantly reduce hunger and
malnutrition.
"The
scarce funds that we have may be better spent focusing on women's needs.
Instead of investing in tractors and high-quality seeds and fertilisers, we may
wish to spend more on supporting piped water systems, and providing electricity
and childcare services.
"It's
a matter of ranking priorities, not increasing budgets. Big investments are
made today in agriculture – the question for governments is how to spend the
money. My message here is to say look, in making these choices, in selecting
priorities, be aware that a productive investment is the one made in women –
that is the secret weapon, or the shortcut, to reducing hunger and
malnutrition."
Professor
Maxine Molyneux, director of the Institute of the Americas at University
College, London, applauded the study's findings. "This report is most
welcome for highlighting the multiple deprivations that women suffer in agriculture
and for showing how gender inequality undermines food security," she says.
"So
many policies still neglect women's needs or deliver the minimum to them, and
then we wonder why they fail. We need dynamic, imaginative policies to get
low-income agricultural producers out of the poverty trap, and that transform
unequal gender relations rather than reinforcing them. … We need policymakers
to listen to women, [and] to learn from them."
However, Dr
Jasmine Gideon, a lecturer in development studies at the University of London's
Birbeck College, identifies a lack of nuance in the report's approach and a
vagueness about some of its terminology. "The report talks about things
like precarious working conditions, land ownership rights and access to credit,
but it doesn't talk about how these things fit into the bigger picture of
what's happening in agriculture," she says. "It doesn't look at
things like the ownership of the means of production in the agricultural
sector, which is predominantly male.
"It
talks about women as an undifferentiated group, but there is much more complex
research about socially assigned gender roles. It's not as straightforward as
the way it's presented, where it seems to be a case of 'Poor women, they need a
bit of help' – which is not a very empowered vision of women."
De Schutter
is optimistic the UN human rights council will adopt his central
recommendations. These include greater state investment in women to liberate
them from the burdens of the care economy; a redefinition of gender roles,
particularly in terms of employment and social protection programmes; and the
mainstreaming of gender concerns into policymaking.
But while
this would oblige member states to report on progress, De Schutter believes
local action is the real key to success. "If local NGOs and women's
organisations and unions mobilise, using the report to put pressure on the
government from below, that will be even more effective than international
pressure."
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