
Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Agriculture: A Guide for Development Organizations Based on the Sustainable Development Goals
Key Messages
- Voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) can contribute indirectly to household food security and gender equality in food access through sustainable production practices that contribute to a diverse and nutritional diet, and by potentially contributing to higher incomes generated from certification.
- Financial supports provided through certification, such as pre-financing or premiums, can contribute to women’s ability to access productive inputs and credit, when producer organizations support these measures enhancing women’s rights to productive agricultures resources.
- Certification through VSSs can alleviate some of women’s domestic labour burdens through financial support for labour-saving investments, equipment and technologies.
Systemic gender inequalities and the disempowerment of women persist in agricultural production across the Global South.
For instance, rural households face significant food security concerns, and women and girls face unequal access to the calories that are available. Implementing VSSs can provide opportunities to enhance women’s economic empowerment, improve food security and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
VSSs have the potential to make significant contributions to sustainable development due to their influence on certification criteria and implementing procedures with farmers and agricultural communities.
Our report, available in English and French, explains how VSSs can be used as a tool to meet the SDGs and targets related to gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture. It also provides recommendations for development organizations working toward that goal. Specifically, the report analyzes how VSSs:
- Can be leveraged to make positive contributions to gender equality
- Can promote gender equality depending on certain conditions
- Can exacerbate gender inequalities if not undertaken with sensitivity to local gender dynamics.
You might also be interested in
Global Market Report: Banana prices and sustainability
This report explores market trends in the banana industry and how standards and other supply chain actors can build producers' resilience to sustainability challenges.
Voluntary sustainability standards needed to improve South Asian cotton sector – report
A study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) says that South Asia's cotton sector should accelerate its adoption of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) to improve cotton sustainability.
Voluntary Sustainability Standards in South Asia
Examines how voluntary sustainability standards can address key sustainability issues and interact with the policy landscape of the region.
Latest IISD Coffee Report Calls for More Price Transparency
Current approaches to coffee pricing and value distribution in the global coffee market are unsustainable and present a lack of long-term resiliency in the coffee industry, according to the latest coffee market report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).