Gender and Assets

for Food Security

Lena Heron

USAID Bureau of Food Security

October 2011

The Challenge

• 925 million people

undernourished

• 3.5 million children die from

undernutrition each year

• Global food supplies need

to increase by an estimated

50 percent to meet

expected demand by 2030.

Women and children are disproportionately represented

amongst the one billion people around the world suffering

from chronic hunger.

L’Aquila Food Security Initiative

• 2009 G-8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy

– President Obama pledged $3.5 billion over 3 years for

agriculture-led development

– Other donors pledged more than $18.5 billion in support

• 2009 World Summit on Food Security

– 193 countries endorsed a common approach based five

shared principles

Feed the Future pursues two paths:

• Addressing the root causes of hunger.

• Aligning our resources with country-owned processes and sustained, multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Key Objectives

• Inclusive Agriculture Sector Growth

• Improved Nutritional Status

Cross cutting Priorities

• Gender

• Environment/Climate Change

Gender in the context of Feed the Future:

There is consistent and compelling evidence that when

the status of women is improved, agricultural

productivity increases, poverty is reduced, and nutrition

improves.

Achieving global food security will require…

• Recognizing the contribution of women to agricultural

production, and

• Reducing gender inequality.

Women – the majority of the agricultural workforce,

yet often:

• Lack access to land, water and other productive assets;

• Lack access to credit, improved inputs, training and information;

• Have more limited access to markets;

• Experience a greater time burden associated with caregiving and household responsibilities;

• Have less control over household decision making.

But how do we empower women?

Gender inequalities are embedded in laws, rules and

social norms.

• In order to improve women’s access to and control

over assets, we must fully understand the current

patterns of access access—both the pros and cons.

• In order to effectively improve women’s access to

and control over assets, their rights must be ensured

both in law and practice.

• Approach change holistically. . .

• Why the gender gap is important;

• Results from a multi-country study to measure the

gap in women’s access;

• Drill down into specifics of access and various

approaches to improve access in different

development contexts;

• New efforts at USAID to measure women’s

empowerment;

• Open discussion of implications for programming.