Gender Equality in Agriculture: Leveraging voluntary sustainability standards for women's empowerment

Gender equality in agriculture remains a challenge. Unequal power structures in rural households mean women often have difficulty accessing food for themselves, even though they are usually the ones responsible for preparing food for their families. This problem persists and has created significant challenges for women’s nutrition, food security and health in developing countries.

Women have also historically faced challenges having the same access to productive agricultural resources as men. Unequal property rights and poor working conditions have also been major challenges for women working in this sector.

These challenges are the focus of our report, Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A Guide for Development Organizations Based on the Sustainable Development Goals.

During this webinar, experts Kathleen Sexsmith, author of the report and Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology at Pennsylvania State University, and Cristina Larrea, Sustainability Standards Workstream Lead at IISD, highlighted some of these concerns and explored how leveraging voluntary sustainability standards can support gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture.