Why bridging gender gap in food systems is important

Dar es Salaam. African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (Award) say addressing gender gap in food systems would benefit the continent through the missed expertise, food resource potentials and available talents.

Award said there is a need to increase the number of women in the area of research and development and decision making after being empowered to have meaningful contribution and participation.

The institution’s senior communications manager, Mr Dorine Odongo made a statement here during the the African Food Systems Summit 2023.

She said the global research on the status of women in the agri-food systems released by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) shows that gender gaps persist despite the presence of some progress.

She said furthermore that the report highlights the need for policy reform measures intensification in order to ensure policies address issues of gender gaps and women empowerment.

“We need to do more, we need to do better in equipping the women. But, again the problem isn’t the women, rather the problem is the systems, that’s why we are addressing the matter in terms of policies,” she said.

“Our aim is to ensure that we have conducive policies for the women to grow into leadership, stay there and have meaningful contribution and participation in the leadership,” she added.

Ms Odongo said discriminatory norms and social practises are to blame for competency decline among the women graduates, suggesting that the working environment should be made conducive for the women and mentorship programs introduced.

Furthermore, she said gender gaps exist in the areas of farm productivity, leadership and policies.

She said the Award has prioritised on the issues of policy reforms and ensured they are interrogated in a meaningful way, ensuring they are equitable and prevent the widening gender gap.

“We at Award are very much interested in leadership. The continent continues to have few women leaders in the area of research and development. Less than a quarter engage in agriculture research and development, but less than seven percent of all the women are in the leadership,” she said.

According to her, Award is for implementing the Gender Responsive Agricultural Systems Policy fellowship under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The fellowship targets at ensuring policy makers and policy practitioners are supported to designing policies that would address the policy gap.

Ms Dina Esposito, the assistant administrator for the Resilience and Food Security (RFS) bureau at USAID said the FAO report on the status of women in Agri-food systems shows that Covid-19 pandemic, protracted conflicts and impacts of climate change have contributed to an estimated 126 million more food insecure women than men, cautioning that the gap was growing.

“If we simply level the playing field for women in agri-food systems, global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow by 1 percent which is equivalent to nearly $1 trillion,” she said.

She said this would reduce the number of food insecure people by 45 million, calling for a powerful incentive for everybody to drive harder towards the intended goal.