Gender inequalities affect all aspects of food systems and undermine the overall wellbeing of all involved actors. This is limiting their food and nutrition security and their empowerment while also hindering the effectiveness of women, girls, men and boys’ contributions. To achieve sustainable, fair and just food systems, it is essential to address these inequalities and to promote gender equality.
The Infopoint conference focuses on managing the knowledge needed to analyse issues, to identify, design and implement solutions that help advancing gender equality in food systems. Speakers will present their respective commitments, initiatives, experiences and points of view in relation to gender equality, food systems sustainability and research and innovation.
The event aims to promote a better understanding of the importance of gender equality in food systems and explore ways to advance it. Participants are invited to share thoughts, questions, and perspectives on the topic. This input will help create tools that are more accessible, useful, and effective.
- the EU's international role | international cooperation
- Wednesday 9 April 2025, 11:00 - 12:30 (CEST)
- Brussels, Belgium
Practical information
- When
- Wednesday 9 April 2025, 11:00 - 12:30 (CEST)
- Where
- InfoPointBrussels, Belgium
- Languages
- English
- Organisers
- International Partnerships InfoPoint
Description
Women play a vital role in every stage of food production and distribution - from farming to processing, trading, and consumption. Yet, gender inequalities persist along the entire food systems at the detriment of women. These inequalities are rooted in discriminatory social norms and rules that limit women’s empowerment, restrict their productive potential and limit their access to land, resources and assets.
Gender-equal food systems are key to ensure adequate nutrition and healthy diets for all, environmental integrity of agroecosystems, adaptation and mitigation of climate change, and decent livelihoods.
Achieving gender equality is an integrative part of food systems transformation that needs to be addressed through comprehensive and holistic approaches addressing the root causes of gender inequalities. Steering these dynamics to achieve the desired outcome is crucial.
In this frame, the Gender Action Plan of the European Commission (GAPIII) adopts a transformative, intersectional, and rights-based approach to gender equality in external action. It focuses on addressing root causes of inequality and promoting systemic change and aims for 85% of new EU actions to contribute to gender equality.
The conference will address these issues by presenting the European Commission’s policy perspective on the topic, followed by examples of initiatives supporting gender equality and women’s empowerment by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Subsequently, the audience will get insights from the work of the Kenyan Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), a network of Civil Society Organizations / NGOs working with small-scale farmers in East, Central, and Southern Africa. The presentation will show how the work that empowers women improves the food security of the families, the social and economic situation of farmers and their communities as a whole.
The Joint Research Centre will present the new section onGender Equality and Food Systems of its Knowledge Centre on Global Food and Nutrition Security, co-chaired by DG INTPA. This knowledge platform highlights key policies and initiatives at both the international and EU levels while offering regular updates on news, events, publications and policy actions. It also aims to display initiatives of Member States that tackle gender inequalities in food systems in their development work. The main results of a recently published knowledge review on the topic will be presented too.
Finally, DG INTPA Unit responsible for Gender Equality, Human Rights and Democratic Governance will provide closing remarks, offering insights into the implementation of the Gender Action Plan III (GAPIII) and the newly launched Commission’s Roadmap for women’s rights.
Speakers
- Carla Montesi, Director, DG INTPA, Directorate for Green Deal, Digital Agenda,
- Alessandra Zampieri, Director, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources
- Theresa Herbold, Senior Policy Advisor, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany
- Rosinah Mbenya, Country coordinator, PELUM Kenya
- Carlo Rega, Scientific Officer, JRC Unit D5 - Food security
- Brigitte Luggin, Policy officer, DG INTPA Unit G1 Gender Equality, Human Rights and Democratic Governance
- Moderation: Laura Gualdi, Quality support expert, DG INTPA Unit F3 Sustainable Agri-Food systems and Fisheries
Language: English
Q&A session languages: English
Registration
Registration
Registration for onsite participation at the InfoPoint premises
Register for online participation to the Webex meeting (Webex link will be communicated upon registration)
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