• Poverty reduction strategies
• Gender and the MDGs

Poverty reduction strategies

The production of liquid biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel is rapidly increasing in developing countries, due mainly to the establishment of large-scale biofuel feedstock plantations. This results in potential socio-economic benefits, particularly in terms of agricultural employment, but also in risks, which tend to be context-specific.

The objective of this paper is to discuss the potential gender-differentiated risks of liquid biofuels production and identify research and policy strategies to better understand and address them. The paper discusses both potential environmental and socio-economic risks that may arise from the establishment and operation of large-scale plantations for the production of biofuels, and potential risks for food security resulting from an increase in food prices, due to the growing use of agricultural crops for biofuels production.

In summary, the paper argues that:

• liquid biofuel production might exacerbate pre-existing gender-based inequalities, contributing to the socio-economic marginalisation of women and female-headed households and threatening their livelihoods, with negative implications for their food security
  
• men and women might have different employment opportunities and conditions on plantations of biofuel feedstocks, and might therefore be exposed to different work-related health risks
  
• the environmental and socio-economic risks associated with biofuels production might also lower the resilience of rural communities and individuals to exogenous shocks, for instance reducing their ability to cope with the impacts of climate change, particularly in the case of women and female-headed households

The authors conclude by offering some specific recommendations for future research, such as conducting field-assessments to generate sex-disaggregated data for testing the hypotheses discussed in this paper. They also offer a number of alternative policy options for reducing the risks and maximizing the opportunities of biofuels production, such as establishing international rules to ensure that this production is environmentally sustainable and pro-poor.

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