Nourishing Equality - Linkages between Gender and Food Security
As part of the “Combatting Food Insecurity in Six crisis Contexts” programme, a multi-country initiative funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), two key learning documents were produced by Oxfam Denmark, Oxfam Belgium in collaboration with Oxfam officesand partners in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali, South Sudan, Syria, and Uganda.
The program’s impact is looked at from a gender perspective, noting that while women are disproportionately affected by food insecurity, the intersection between gender equality and food security has been underexplored.
The learning report “Nourishing Equality - Linkages between Gender and Food Security”, examines three key areas of learning:
Measuring gender equality and food security: Addressing gaps in gendered food security data collection and analysis.
Gender-transformative approaches and food security: Assessing how these approaches influence gender equality and food security at the household and community level.
WEE in volatile contexts: Evaluating the effectiveness of economic empowerment strategies in unstable settings and understanding the link between women’s income and food security.
It concludes that while the integration of gender into food security programming holds promise, there are critical gaps in both the data and our understanding of how gender-transformative approaches influence food security. Additionally, while WEE is important, it does not automatically translate into broader empowerment or greater food security. The report includes recommendations on how to move forward within each of the three key areas of learning.
The top tip poster “Nourishing Equality: How can gender equality be strengthened in food and economic security programming”, includes 9 top tips which emerged from the learning report that can guide us practitioners in how to make food and economic security programmes more gender responsive and transformative.
“ We sat down together, my husband and I, and drew the vision road journey, here we started drawing the poultry and garden [food security activities]. When done, we put the poster by the door, so every time we walk out of the door, we see what we need to achieve today. We have not specified who does what, because we do it together. It is joint family work, not only the woman’s responsibility/job! ”