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Women’s Empowerment

Background

Despite assuming significant roles and responsibilities, in food systems, women continue to face a systemic disadvantage in accessing productive resources, services, and information (GEWE Scoping Paper, 2020).

Meeting SDG2 (Zero Hunger) and SGD5 (Gender Equality) requires transformative approaches by all actors, and the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UN FSS) identified gender as a cross-cutting lever of change that has the potential to deliver wide-ranging positive change and is relevant across all of the SDGs in addition to being critical to the transformation of food systems in the coming decade.

Advancing gender equality for food security and nutrition continues to gain momentum within the United Nations System and there is a growing consensus around the need for transformative approaches. At the 47th session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS47), the Terms of Reference for the development of the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (GEWGE VGs) were adopted, paving way for the process of identifying the most significant issues to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in the context of food security and nutrition. The final version of the VGs is set to be adopted at CFS 50 in October 2022.

The PSM is committed to the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of women and is actively engaged in the process of preparing the guidelines, using our experiences, best practices, and innovations to inform and empower the guidelines. We presented our position paper which outlines our viewpoint on the subject, including:

  • Promotion of the adoption and implementation of policies that ensure legal equality for women, including rights to land and other productive resources.
  • Encouraging women’s capacity to organize themselves and foster women leaders.
  • Providing access to proper maternal health services for women and focus particularly on nutrition for the first 1000 days of mother and child.
  • Encouraging investors, donors, and governments to focus on supporting women smallholder farmers.
  • Education programs should make specific reference to the needs of women, including rural women.
  • Gender-sensitive approaches to increase access to agricultural extension services.
  • Access to banking services.
  • Supporting co-operatives and other enterprises.
  • Educational goals for orphans and vulnerable children in developing countries.

In addition to these viewpoints, which were included in the draft guidelines, PSM has provided inputs into subsequent drafts, online consultations, participated in Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) meetings and in negotiations. On April 7, PSM organized a Gender Roundtable under the topic Business accelerating gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment in food systems. The roundtable brought together 120 representatives of Member States, UN agencies, NGOs, academia, and private sector to discuss and showcase business commitments and initiatives that are accelerating action for gender equality under the themes of leadership, entrepreneurship and nutrition. The outcomes of the roundtable went to further strengthen private sector inputs into the negotiations.

The PSM continues to value the multi-stakeholder process which will ensure ownership and greater uptake of the final product.

If you wish to participate in the process, please contact irina@emergingag.com.

Case Studies

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Tetra Pak Laval AB


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Milk – 26.2 campaign


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Nestlé


Women-Led Biofortified Food Businesses: Advancing Nutrition and Health

HarvestPlus


  • PSM – Sight and Life Case Study: Reducing Global Malnutrition One Egg at a Time – 2022

    August 15, 2022 4 MB Women’s empowerment

    Stunting – inadequate length/height for age – in early childhood has multiple causes. These include inadequate maternal and/or early childhood nutrition, inadequate infant and young child feeding practices, poor environmental health, lack of dietary diversity, and illness. Low intake of animal-source foods (ASFs) rich in high-quality protein and other key nutrients during the complementary feeding period (6–24 months) is a signi cant factor here. Evidence suggests that the consumption of ASFs is associated with improved linear growth. At Sight and Life, we are devoted to increasing egg production and consumption in support of better nutrition for vulnerable populations worldwide. We report here on some egg-citing recent developments.

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  • PSM – Sight and Life Case Study: Eat More, Eat Better, Sight and Life – 2022

    August 15, 2022 4 MB Women’s empowerment

    Maternal malnutrition is a major public health problem in India. PLW have higher calorie, protein and micronutrient needs than other women, but calorie intake among PLW in Rajasthan is 40% below doctors’ recommendations. Women are o cially encouraged to “eat a variety of foods and eat more o en than they normally would,” but this advice is difficult to translate into practice.

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  • PSM – Sight and Life Case Study: OBAASIMA Seal: Public-Private Partnerships for Demand-Driven Nutrition – 2022

    August 15, 2022 7 MB Women’s empowerment

    In July 2013, a partnership was launched between Sight and Life, Royal DSM N.V., the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Association of Ghanaian Industries (AGI), and the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA). The objective of this partnership is to improve micronutrient intakes of women of reproductive age in Ghana. It resulted in the creation of the OBAASIMA Seal – a market-based approach aimed at addressing micronutrient de ciencies across the food chain, from production to demand creation.

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Documents