Women's limited voice in governance and decision-making impedes inclusive climate resilience. This scoping review identifies barriers that hamper women's participation in decision-making in agrifood systems and assesses interventions that amplify their voice and agency.

The work bases on two analytical frameworks—the women's empowerment in agrifood systems governance (Ragasa et al., 2022) and the Reach-Benefit-Empower-Transform framework (Quisumbing et al., 2023):

The reach-benefit-empower-transform framework

The authors synthesized evidence from 47 studies in the Global South and found an alarming gender inertia and inflexibility in the agricultural system, which tilts production, marketing, distribution, and decision-making in the direction of men. This review demonstrated robust evidence of existing gender barriers women face in exercising voice and agency in agricultural food systems. The authors identified a range of structural impediments, such as lower education, information, and asset control which systematically hampers women's involvement in AFS governance.

Making agrifood systems work better for women entails ensuring that they are at the forefront of leadership and decision-making and have access to climate-relevant agricultural innovations.  Investing in women's leadership can yield far-reaching dividends, not only for women themselves but also for the institutions they represent, their communities, and society at large. Evidence has shown that having active women leaders can result in increased funding for the services women prioritize, more robust policies related to gender-based violence, and even eliminate the gender gap in yields. But for women to affect these kinds of positive change, they need to be directly involved in making policy decisions. To get women directly involved in policy decision-making, women need to be empowered through training to foster confidence, self-awareness, strategic advocacy, and communication skills to galvanize change. Furthermore, there is the need for policy and legislative reforms and programs that facilitate equitable and just access to and management of resources for women.

The authors suggest that future research could build a theoretical framework to map how structural barriers, sociocultural norms, and psychological constraints intersect to limit women's agency in agri-food system governance. Such a framework would integrate the three interrelated dimensions.

• structural barriers, including unequal access to land, credit, agricultural inputs, extension services, and climate information systems, as well as institutional biases that restrict women's participation in leadership and decision-making.
• sociocultural norms, specifically the deeply embedded gender roles and patriarchal practices that define responsibilities, restrict women's mobility, and reinforce unequal power relations within households and communities.
• psychological constraints, encompassing internalized perceptions of inadequacy, lack of confidence, and limited sense of agency that often result from prolonged exclusion and marginalization.

Such a framework would help identify entry points for action at multiple levels. Policy reforms could focus on strengthening women’s land rights, introducing gender-responsive budgeting, and integrating gender equality into agricultural and climate policies. Practical interventions could include capacity-building initiatives, support for women-led cooperatives, and more inclusive agricultural extension services. At the knowledge level, participatory research, context-sensitive innovation, and improved gender-disaggregated data collection would help ensure that policies and programs respond to women’s priorities and contribute to transforming gender relations within agrifood systems.