CGIAR Series of Evidence Explainers

CGIAR - 2023

The CGIAR Evidence explainers are short, accessible summaries of notable gender research. Each explainer presents recommendations,  implications and conclusions of use to development practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and others working with gender in food systems.

A review of evidence on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems

2023

Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems can lead to improved food security and better nutrition and more equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems for all. This review of scientific literature assesses the pathways of gender equality, women’s empowerment and food systems.

The results show strong evidence on women’s differential access to resources, which is shaped and reinforced by contextual social gender norms, the links between women’s empowerment and maternal education and important outcomes, such as nutrition and dietary diversity. However, there is limited evidence on issues such as gender considerations in urban food systems and in aquaculture value chains. Achieving gender equality and women's empowerment in food systems can lead to improved food security and nutrition, and more equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems for all. This review of the scientific literature assesses the pathways of gender equality, women's empowerment and food systems.

The results show strong evidence of women's differential access to resources, shaped and reinforced by contextualised social gender norms, the links between women's empowerment and maternal education, and important outcomes such as nutrition and dietary diversity. However, there is limited evidence on issues such as gender considerations in urban food systems and aquaculture value chains. There is also a lack of good practice and effective ways to engage men in the process of empowering women in food systems, and to address issues related to migration, crises and indigenous food systems. While there are gender-informed evaluation studies examining the effectiveness of gender- and nutrition-sensitive agricultural programmes, evidence on the long-term sustainability of such impacts remains limited.While there are gender-informed evaluation studies examining the effectiveness of gender- and nutrition-sensitive agricultural programmes, evidence on thelong-term sustainability of such impacts remains limited.

The chapter recommends key areas for investment: improving women’s leadership and decision-making in food systems, promoting equal and positive gender norms, improving access to resources, and building cross-contextual research evidence on gender and food systems.

From gender gaps to gender-transformative climate-smart agriculture

2024

This review examines climate-related vulnerability and the key issues linking gender equality and social inclusion to scaling up and mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture (CSA) to achieve inclusive and sustainable food systems and, to reduce climate-related vulnerability. It documents gender gaps in agricultural productivity and  CSA adoption. It highlights that women are as likely or more likely than men to adopt CSA practices, when provided with adequate information, training, and resources and that gender-blind application of CSA can exacerbate existing inequalities, thereby undermining the agenda for women’s equality. Careful analysis of gender-related barriers is needed before implementing actions, namely of (i) gender norms and gender biases; (ii) the gender division of labour and women’s workloads due to climate impacts; (iii) access to land and livestock; (iv) ability to use inputs (e.g. adapted/improved seeds and fertiliser; (v) access to information and climate services; (vi) finance; and (vii) influence in community and household decision-making. The review also highlights the need to include gender transformative approaches and intersectional analyses of roles and behaviours for successful adoption of CSA. The analysis also found low representation of research on certain important aspects of CSA such as value chains, scaling up of adaptation practices, and water management.

The status of women in agrifood systems

FAO - 2023

FAO published a flagship report in 2023 on the status of women in food systems based on the latest evidence on gender inequalities across all nodes of the food systems. The report gathers evidence on gender gaps and their causes  along food systems. The report shows that across regions and sectors, women are concentrated in informal, insecure, and lower-paid nodes of the value chain than their male counterparts. In terms of policy the report highlights that increasing women’s empowerment is essential for women’s well-being and has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets and child nutrition. Enhancing women’s rights to own or have secure tenure over agricultural land has positive impacts on empowerment, investment, natural resource management, access to services and institutions, resilience and food security, reducing gender-based violence and increasing women’s bargaining power. Access to formal child care has a large positive impact on mothers’ employment in and returns to food system activities. Improving women’s access to agricultural extension services is important to maximise food and nutrition outcomes and to facilitate women’s participation across food systems. In addition, gender-transformative approaches to changing restrictive social norms are cost-effective and have high returns, but more work is needed to develop pathways implementing gender-transformative approaches at scale.

FAO Data snapshot using sex-disaggregated data to better understand gender gaps in agriculture 

FAO - 2022

The brochure provides data disaggregated by sex on various issues under the following topics: Small family farms and women's decision-making roles in agriculture Secure rights over land Employment, work and time use in agricultural contexts Access to digitalization and financial services Food security It also identifies some of the areas in the rural and agricultural contexts where there is only a partial understanding of the reality due to the lack of sex‑disaggregated data and gender-relevant statistics.

Gender in agriculture and food systems: An Evidence Gap Map   

2021

This Evidence Gap Map (EGM) consolidates evidence on gender in agriculture and food systems across eleven identified themes. It does not synthesise information but presents a systematic and interactive matrix of outcomes across all themes based on the existing evidence from qualitative, quantitative and mixed method designs. The exercise shows that: i) research on gender in agriculture and food systems has mostly focused on addressing socio-economic issues, where social is the most reported outcome, followed by agricultural knowledge and behavioural , and economic outcomes. However, certain sub-outcomes within the social outcomes are reported more frequently than others –such as decision making or agency followed by changes in social, cultural and gender norms. Gender-based violence is the least reported social outcome. The EGM reports that environmental outcomes are the least reported outcome. ii) Evidence for all themes is primarily concentrated in Africa and Asia, while the evidence base in Latin America and MENA is thin. iii) More than half of all the evidence comes from four themes: 1) Agriculture, gender, risk, and resilience to shocks and stressors; 2) Gender-responsive design and dissemination of crops, livestock, and sustainable production technologies and practices for gender equality and women's empowerment; 3) Transforming gender norms and 4) Nutrition and health. Other themes such as (5) food systems transformation for gender equality (GE) and women's empowerment;  (6) gender and seed systems; and (7) gender and breeding,  had less than half the number of studies compared to other themes. The Evidence Gap Map can be accessed through this link. It is a product of the CGIAR Generating Evidence and New Directions for Equitable Results (GENDER) Platform.

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