Gender and Food Security
Women and food crises: how US food aid policies can better support their struggles. A discussion paper
How can women be more actively engaged in solving food crises?
Authors:
K. Hansen-Kuhn; Action Aid
Publisher:
Southern African Regional Poverty Network , 2007
Over the last few decades, food crises have become a distressingly common phenomena. Women are often at the centre of these emergencies, though the disproportionate impact of hunger on women is too often hidden within statistics, similarly, the role of women in providing solutions to these crises is also often overlooked. This discussion paper lays out some of the key issues in modern food crises, with particular reference to Kenya and Malawi, and explores some opportunities for engaging women more actively in the quest for more effective answers.
The author argues that while short-term emergency food aid is often essential, it must be balanced with longer-term assistance and more comprehensive programmes for agricultural development that are designed to support women’s crucial contributions to agricultural production and their commitment to feed their families. As such, a number of recommendations are made.
The author asserts that the US and other rich countries should:
- stop imposing trade rules and economic policy conditions that make it difficult for African governments to support smallholder farmers, and push them towards excessive reliance on export-driven agriculture at the expense of food crops for local markets.
- reform their policies and programmes to support rather than undermine innovative approaches to agriculture and women’s roles in food production.
- increase funding for food aid and agricultural development.
Whilst African governments should:
- promote, uphold and enforce women’s rights to land, credit, water, seeds and other productive resources
- establish structures at the community, regional and national levels to ensure that women’s voices are heard in the design and implementation of food and agriculture policies and donor assistance programmes
- expand state-funded programmes of treatment, care, nutrition and support for HIV-affected persons, especially in rural areas
- make sure that their people’s right to food is sustainably fulfilled before pursuing the development of export markets
- go beyond food security (the pursuit of adequate food supplies) to introduce policies that will ensure their nation’s food sovereignty
The author concludes that the US and other rich countries urgently need to join hands with women farmers and African governments to develop lasting solutions that can secure for once and for all the fundamental right to be free from hunger. Never, it is argued, has a policy challenge been so literally a matter of life and death.
