Gender equality, food security and the sustainable development goals

Gender equality, food security and the sustainable development goals

Background

The United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2000s to address global challenges. SDG 5, which focuses on Gender Equality, has the potential of enhancing food security. Women, who make up a significant and growing share of agricultural workers, play a central role in food processing and preparation but face systemic barriers that hinder their contributions. Restrictive inheritance laws, social norms, and inequitable land markets often deny women access to land. Additionally, limited access to credit, irrigation, fertilizers, technology, and marketing infrastructure further impedes their efforts. Climate change intensifies these challenges by disproportionately restricting women's ability to benefit from adaptation and mitigation efforts, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Goals and Methods

The author’s goal in writing this paper is to analyze the potential and limitations of the UN’s SDG 5 in achieving household food security.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Target 5.a of SDG 5 emphasizes women's equal rights to economic resources and outlines provisions to improve their access to land, an essential step toward enhancing food security. It also promotes greater access to financial services, allowing women to invest in agricultural inputs. Additionally, Target 5.5 of SDG 5 encourages women's participation in public life, which can extend to their involvement in community institutions such as forest management groups. Despite these efforts, SDG 5 faces limitations. Its narrow focus on inheritance as a pathway to land ownership ignores discriminatory national laws and it overlooks the social norms that block women's access to resources. Agarwal contends that SDG 5 can better support food security if policymakers interpret it broadly, implement it alongside related SDGs (such as those addressing poverty, hunger, and climate action), and collaborate with civil society partners to drive meaningful change.

Reference: 

Agarwal B. Gender equality, food security and the sustainable development goals. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 2018;34:26 - 32. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2018.07.002.