We support the EU global commitment to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition through a dedicated, reinforced science-policy interface and a fostered inter-policy dialogue.
This page is currently under development and will be regularly updated with new material.
This page presents the policy and strategy frameworks through which the European Union and its Member States commit to tackling gender inequalities in food systems in their external action. It first presents EU-wide frameworks and then Member States’ foreign-policy and development strategies with a gender or feminist focus.
The companion Initiatives and Programmes page shows how the policy translates into action.
2021 - 2027
Rooted in the EU Gender Equality Strategy, the EU’s commitments to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment through all external actions are laid out in its third Gender Action Plan - GAP III: 2021-2025. Transformative and intersectional approaches shall address the structural causes of gender inequality and gender-based discrimination, including by actively engaging men and boys in challenging gender norms and stereotypes. The EU GAP III makes gender equality and women's empowerment a cross-cutting priority of EU external action, with special attention also to the situation of girls. The GAP III sets the objective that 85% of all new EU actions will contribute to achieving Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE) by 2025.
2026 - 2030
With this third Gender Action Plan 2026-2030, the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group sets out its renewed commitment to fostering equality and inclusive growth. Over the past five years, the Group doubled its financing for gender equality to more than €30 billion. With the new action plan, the EIB Group fosters equality and inclusive growth across three action areas: new economic opportunities for women; inclusive infrastructure and services, including health solutions; and upholding safety, security, dignity and equal rights in all operations, supported by a fivefold increase in advisory services and deepened partnerships with the European Commission, including through the Global Gateway.
2025 - 2030
France’s International Strategy for Feminist Foreign Policy 2025-2030 follows on from the International Strategy for Gender Equality adopted in 2018. The strategy defines common goals for all of France’s international and European action and establishes a plan of action for the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs for 2025-2030. France makes its feminist foreign policy a priority in every field of its European and international action, such as peace and security, climate and the environment, development, democratic governance, human rights, humanitarian action, economic, financial and trade issues, digital technology, culture, education, health and food security.
AFD (“Agence Française de Développement”), the French development cooperation agency, made a commitment that 100 percent of funded projects will seek to improve gender equality. AFD defined its first Strategy on Gender and the Reduction of Gender Inequalities in 2023 based on three priorities: preventing gender inequalities in its operations, promoting gender and women's empowerment, supporting the development of societies in relation to these issues.
AFD has also implemented the components of its 100% Social Link strategy in terms of combating gender inequality. It has financed flagship projects working to strengthen the consideration of gender in public policy dialog, in combating climate change, in combating violence against women and in improving sexual and reproductive health and right.
It has developed specific expertise in transversal themes such as AFD has identified transversal themes, such as disseminating Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), a results-based budgeting approach for the systematic consideration of gender-based inequality in the planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of public policies.
2024 - 2026
Italy's Three-Year Programming and Guidance Document 2024–2026, adopted in June 2025, sets the strategic framework for Italian development cooperation. Gender equality is defined as a priority and cross-cutting theme, with gender mainstreaming to be ensured in the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all cooperation initiatives. The document links gender explicitly to the food security and climate agenda, in line with the gender-environment priorities of Italy's 2024 G7 Presidency. The dedicated priority sector on agriculture and food security focuses on the sustainable transformation of food systems, decent incomes for small-scale producers and the food security-climate nexus; gender considerations apply to it through the document's mainstreaming commitment.
2020 - 2024
Gender equality is one of the key objectives of Italian development cooperation. The AICS (Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo), the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, had developed the “Guidelines on Gender Equality for Women and Girls (2020-2024)”. They define the principles and operating methods for action.
2023
Germany's feminist development policy aims to combat global discrimination and oppression — particularly against women and girls — by championing equal participation in political, economic, and social life as a foundation for stable, peaceful societies.
2023 - 2027
The Third Development Policy Action Plan on Gender Equality (BMZ GAP III) operationalizes Germany's Feminist Development Policy. It is designed to provide guidance on how feminist development policy can be translated into concrete action, with the aim of strengthening the rights, resources and representation ("three Rs") of women, girls and marginalised groups. It explicitly includes food and nutrition security, agriculture and rural development as one of its six thematic priority areas working towards three goals: the universal human right to sufficient, safe and nutritious food with special attention to the specific nutritional needs of women, children and adolescents; equal rights of use for women and marginalised groups and equal access to the resources of land, water and capital; active involvement of women and marginalised groups in decision-making at all levels in the area of food and nutrition security, agriculture and rural development.
This Strategy governs Sweden’s development cooperation for gender equality and women’s and girls’ freedoms and rights, empowerment and opportunities for the period 2025–2028
2021
Spain announced the adoption of a feminist foreign policy in 2020, on the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and implemented it in March 2021.The Action Plan for Feminist Foreign Policy 2023-2024 provides guidance and order the implementation of the Feminist Foreign Policy Roadmap within the framework of the External Action Strategy 2022-2024. Spain's feminist foreign policy is now anchored in the External Action Strategy 2025–2028.
The Spanish Government is reinforcing its commitment to defending gender equality and transforming the power structures that perpetuate discrimination, from a cross-cutting approach that prioritises equality, empowerment and the eradication of violence against women and girls. The Feminist Cooperation Strategy of Spanish Cooperation (2025-2030) is an operational guide for the practical implementation of this public policy, delivered through Spain's commitment to multilateralism, its actions in the European Union, its bilateral relations and its development cooperation policy, as well as equality within its own Foreign Service. It is based on five guiding principles: a transformative approach, committed leadership, ownership, inclusive participation and the fostering of alliances, and diversity and intersectionality. Alongside gender mainstreaming in every area of foreign policy, it defines five thematic priorities: Women, Peace and Security; violence against women; human rights of women and girls; participation of women in decision-making; and economic justice and the empowerment of women.
Spain’s Third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (2025–2030) was formally presented in March 2026. Crafted by 13 ministries and civil society, the plan is a core pillar of Spain's Feminist Foreign Policy to ensure women’s leadership in conflict prevention and peace building.
07 Oct 2024 | 07 Jul 2026
