The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the

views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

GENDER, FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION Olivier De Schutter

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

I. Womens access to food and nutrition: its direct and instrumental value II. The many faces of discrimination 1. Women as food producers 2. Womens access to employment 3. Transformative social protection III. Looking forward: Key Recommendations

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

1. Womens access to food and nutrition: its direct and its instrumental value

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

AVAILABILITY increased production and imports ACCESS Own-production Income-generating employment Social protection through solidarity networks or State

ADEQUACY diversity of diets UTILIZATION feeding practices, health and sanitation

The right of women and girls to adequate food and nutrition The instrumental value of gender equality
ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

(most proximate), underlying, and basic

Figure 2.1 The causes of child malnutrition, death, and disability

healthy life for all household members

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Outcomes Child malnutrition, death, and disability

Immediate causes

Inadequate dietary intake

Disease

Underlying causes (household level)

Insufficient access to food

Inadequate maternal and child practices

Poor water and sanitation and inadequate health services

Basic causes (societal level)

Quantity and quality of actual resourceshuman, economic, and organizationaland the way they are controlled

Inadequate or inappropriate knowledge and discriminatory attitudes limit household access to actual resources

Political, economic, cultural, and social systems, including the status of women, limit the utilization of potential resources

Potential resources: environment, technology, people

Source: UNICEF 1998. Source: UNICEF, The state of the world's children 1998

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

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Cross-country variation in child mortality explained by differences in gender development. Source: Turner (2012), compilation based on data from the United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report (various issues) for Gender related Development Index and UN MDG Database for child mortality.
ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Stronger bargaining household within the family: choices mades for the benefit of health, education and nutrition of children

Higher education leading to improved knowledge about feeding practices

Improved nutritional outcomes as a result of gender empowerment

Role of women as economic agents, within the food systems and in other parts of the economy: a source of income for the family

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

The cycle that must be broken

Discrimination in access to economic activity as a result of disempowerment Lower levels of education, language barriers, mobility barriers Weak bargaining position within the household

Time poverty: fewer opportunities to seek education and outside employment

Disproportionate burden from the household economy

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Recognition: acknowledge the time and mobility constraints women face

Relief: provide services that can relieve women from the burden they shoulder

Redistribution: challenge the gender roles and involving men in the change

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

II. The many faces of discrimination 1.Women as food producers 2.Womens access to employment 3.Transformative social protection

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Men seek offfarm employment in the industry and services sectors

Women stay behind with the children and the elderly, facing discrimination as food producers

Gendered norms reinforced and women in charge of the "care economy"

Educational opportunities for women and girls diminish because of increased time poverty

Lower levels of education of women

The gendered nature of the agrarian transition

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Source : FAO, State of Food Insecurity 2011 (fig. 1) Female share in agriculture : total number of women active in agriculture / total population active in agriculture. Regional averages weighted by population.
ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

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Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

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Percentage of economically active women per sector, selected countries

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

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Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Discrimination women face as independent food producers: 1. Access to land 2. Access to inputs, technology (agricultural research and development), and services (extension services and credit) 3. Access to markets

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

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Ownership of land among women (percentage of women land holders among all landholders, selected countries, 2012). Based on FAO data.
ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

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Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Weak access to land

Weak access to credit and markets through contract farming

Weak bargaining position within the household

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Discrimination in access to markets: the case of contract farming - Women largely excluded because of lack of control over land, family labour and other resources required to guarantee delivery of a reliable flow of produce (SOFI 2011, p. 13) - Women are fewer than 10 percent of contract farming schemes in Kenyan fruit and vegetable export sector - Only 1 of 59 farmers in Senegal producing French beans for export was a woman - While the contracts are controlled by men, most of the work is performed by women as family labourers

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Table 3. Gender-sensitive support to farmers and alternative farming models

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Dominant model Knowledge Extension services populated by men, with men as main receivers (as heads of households or members of producers' organisations)

Financial services

Weak access to credit for small-scale food producers. Microfinance, even targeted at women, (i) may lead to loans being controlled by men; and (ii) may not reach the poorest women Agricultural research Focus on high-yielding Focus on crops that are ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013 and development and high-value crops, easier to cultivate for in monocropping women (requiring less

Remedial (gendersensitive) measures Increased representation of women among advisors Targeting women as receivers through women organisations Training taking into account time poverty and mobility constraints of women Access to credit by women through social collateral (group lending), e.g. through women's cooperatives

Alternative model Prioritizing farmer-tofarmer (horizontal) transmission of knowledge, through farmer field schools or farmers' organisations, particularly women's organisations

Low-cash agriculture (limited use of external inputs to reduce need for/dependency on credit)

Focus on food crops that are easiest to prepare and to

being controlled by men; and (ii) may not the poorest Olivier De Schutterreach - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition women Agricultural research Focus on high-yielding Focus on crops that are and development and high-value crops, easier to cultivate for in monocropping women (requiring less schemes labour, e.g.)

Markets

Markets insufficiently hospitable to women: buyers turn to men and time and mobility constraints women face reduce their ability to sell

Improved infrastructure and information about prices, and selling through cooperatives, facilitate access particularly for women farmers

Focus on food crops that are easiest to prepare and to preserve, and that are the most nutritious or taste better; multicropping schemes Production primarily geared towards own consumption (meeting the family and community needs); surplus sold on local markets

Removing constraints to womens entrepreneurship or acknowledging Should priority be given to allow women farmers to succeed as entrepreneurs, producing the specificity of homestead farming prioritizing own-consumption? high-value crops for the market and selling them through channels that allow them to capture a remunerative price ? Or should the focus be instead on allowing an alternative model to emerge, in which food crops (rather than cash crops) are prioritized, to ensure the family's or the community's needs are satisfied, and in which a low-external input model of farming, requiring less investment from the farmer, is encouraged ? The answer shall depend of course, ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013 on the local conditions present, on which of these models is most likely to contribute to food security, and on the preferences expressed by women in the specific contexts in which they

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

II. The many faces of discrimination 1.Women as food producers 2.Womens access to employment 3.Transformative social protection

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Womens status as agricultural workers

CORE SEGMENT PERIPHERY Permanent employment (year-round) Seasonal Formal contract Casual Fixed wages Payments on a piece-rate basis combined with the lack of childcare services in rural areas, leading to child labour in agriculture

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

II. The many faces of discrimination 1.Women as food producers 2.Womens access to employment 3.Transformative social protection

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

Transformative social protection

Cash transfers Women beneficiaries but (i) little control over spending, (ii) conditionalities may reinforce gender stereotypes Public works (i) Quotas for women, combined with (ii) childcare facilities, and (iii) building assets/infrastructure that can relieve women and (iv) roleshifting in the allocation of tasks (i) Assets adapted to time constraints, (ii) stipends until assets can generate income, (iii) training Oportunidades (Mexico), Bolsa Familia (Brazil), Pantawid Pamilya (Philippines) ( 4Ps ) MGNREGA (India), Rural Maintenance Program (Bangladesh)

Asset transfers

Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction (CFPR), BRAC (Bangladesh) Midday schoolmeals (India)

Schoolfeeding (i) Combine school meals with takehome rations to increase girls attendance, (ii) recruit poor women as cooks, (iii) women suppliers

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Remove all discriminatory provisions in the law, particularly concerning access to productive resources (Art. 14 CEDAW) 2. National strategies that are (i) multisectoral (ex. schoolfeeding, public works, access to markets), (ii) supportive of womens collectives, (iii) participatory (for both women and men), (iv) phased (from recognition and relief to redistribution), (v) rights-based 3. At project level, participation of women (i) beyond community meetings (focus groups, household surveys), (ii) based on an understanding of entitlements and alternatives (against the danger of adaptive preferences), and (iii) sensitive to the different groups within society

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013

Olivier De Schutter - Gender, Food Security and Nutrition

THANK YOU

ADB-FAO-WOCAN High-Level Consultation - Bangkok, 24-26 July 2013