NAIROBI, Dec 22 (IPS) – In international locations the place girls are most marginalized, discriminated beneath the legislation and the place gendered norms stop girls from proudly owning property and assets, persons are additionally the hungriest. It’s because gender equality and meals techniques are intertwined.
Nevertheless, too typically, we solely deal with the roles that ladies play in manufacturing, processing, buying and selling of meals and in making selections about consumption and buy of meals at family stage.
And whereas that is necessary, we should additionally deal with whether or not the meals system as organized is simply and equitable and whether or not it promotes the empowerment and livelihoods and well being of girls and women.
The UN Meals Techniques Summit, to be convened by the UN Secretary Basic 2021, offers the world with a novel alternative to reframe the worldwide dialog on gender and meals and ask the laborious questions of how the meals system may be structured in a simply and equitable means.
Reframing gender and meals techniques
Whereas there may be recognition that meals techniques transformation is a political, financial and environmental problem, we should additionally acknowledge it as a gender justice problem; stark gender inequalities are each a trigger and an end result of unsustainable meals techniques, unjust meals entry, consumption and manufacturing.
Tackling gender injustice and actually empowering girls is just not solely a elementary prerequisite for meals techniques transformation but in addition a objective.
So, what ought to a gender simply and equitable meals system appear like?
A gender simply and equitable meals system is one which ensures a world with out starvation, the place girls, males, women and boys have equal entry to nutritious, wholesome meals, protected meals, and entry to the means to provide, promote and buy meals.
It’s a meals system the place the roles, tasks, alternatives and selections accessible to ladies and men – together with unpaid caregiving and meals provision – will not be predetermined at start however are developed in keeping with particular person capacities and aspirations.
It’s a meals system the place international locations, communities and households and particular person women and men are outfitted to provide sufficient meals for their very own populations by environmentally sound processes, whereas additionally with the ability to take part in gender-equitable native, world and regional meals buying and selling techniques.
In order meals techniques rework, the objective ought to be to make sure that they rework in methods which might be equitable, that guarantee significant engagement and advantages to all, girls, boys, women, males, indigenous teams amongst others.
In the direction of a simply and equitable meals system
A simply and equitable meals system requires a rethinking of the position of girls as producers and customers and a transfer from “what are girls’s contributions in agriculture” towards “how can meals and agricultural techniques rework in methods which might be equitable and that empower girls”.
Attaining it will require systemic improvements within the meals system and using a feminist lens.
First, at agricultural manufacturing stage, a simply and equitable meals system would require the popularity of girls as farmers, with rights to the land they domesticate, applied sciences that scale back the drudgery of agriculture and insurance policies that guarantee girls could make a residing wage from agriculture.
Girls in many alternative contexts proceed to have their rights to impartial management of land denied, and entry to agricultural inputs, credit score, and different important assets as a consequence of cultural norms, assumptions by governments and packages that farmers are male, as a result of ‘males are the suppliers’.
A world motion just like the “Me Too” motion that raises the consciousness and triggers motion in direction of girls’s rights to assets and to a residing wage in agriculture is required.
Second, it’s going to require commerce, market and finance insurance policies and processes that don’t discriminate in opposition to girls, and that explicitly have interaction girls in formulation and implementation.
For instance, the African Continental Free Commerce Settlement – AfCFTA – framework settlement consists of an goal of gender equality that acknowledges the complete, equal and significant participation of girls in an built-in continental market. Monitoring of this
Third, it’s going to require gender requirements that embody office dignity for girls and equal pay with monitoring and accountability mechanisms for the meals trade, whether or not giant farms, meals factories or the service trade. Within the US, girls meals processing staff made 74 cents to the greenback males earned in 2019.
And in 2018, ILO put a highlight on sexual violence, harassment and poor office circumstances of girls staff in business agriculture. Such requirements are being mentioned in some industries such because the garment trade.
For instance, the Gender Working Group at ISEAL goals to enhance the working circumstances of girls in textile and attire provide chains by selling tailor-made, evidence-based methods, instruments and techniques, with classes that can be extra broadly relevant to different customary organizations.
And at last, it’s going to require strengthening and amplifying the voices of girls in all ranges of the meals system. It will require funding girls smallholder farmers organizations, girls enterprise networks, girls staff unions, girls’s client organizations to interact at totally different ranges and in several conversations to affect meals techniques.
And for the trade, it’s going to require adoption of a set of rules or a girls and meals techniques manifesto for girls’s illustration and inclusion in meals system, comparable in nature to the Chef’s manifesto.
Our meals techniques want to vary to nourish all in a sustainable means that protects our planet. Equally necessary is that they should be simply and equitable and assure the wants and priorities of those who rely on them, together with girls.
Dr. Jemimah Njuki is the Custodian for Gender Equality and Girls’s Empowerment for the UN Meals Techniques Summit 2021 and a Meals Techniques Champion. She is an Aspen New Voices Fellow and writes on problems with gender equality in meals techniques. Observe her on @jemimah_njuki
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