Question

How does food insecurity affects women?

Answer 1

Gender inequality both leads to and is result of food insecurity.According to estimates women and girls make up 60% of the world's chronically hungry and little progress has been made in ensuring the equal right to food for women enshrined in the convection on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.Women face discrimination both in education and employment opportunities and within the household where there bargaining power is lower.On the other hand,gender equality is described as instrumental to ending malnutrition and hunger.Women tend to be responsible for food preparation and childcare within the family and are more likely to spend their children's needs.Women also play an important role in food production,processing,distribution and marketing.They often work as unpaid family workers,are involved in subsistence farming and represent about 33% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries varying from 20% in latin america to 50% in eastern and south eastern asia and sub saharan africa.However women face discrimination in access to land,credit,technologies,finance and other services.
Empirical studies suggest that if women had the same access to productive resources as men women could boost their yields by20-30% raising the overall agricultural in developing countries by 2.5-4%.While those are rough estimates,the significant positive impact of closing the gender gap on agricultural productivity cannot be denied.The gendered aspects of food security,availability,access,utilisation,stability,as defined by the food and agricultural organisation.