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Gender Inclusiveness

Recognizing the central role women play in agriculture in most developing countries, as well as the numerous challenges that hinder their full participation in and benefits from food systems activities, GCFSI has made gender inclusiveness a significant focus of its overall work.



Gender_Maize.jpgGender inclusiveness is significant focus at GCFSI, which aims to improve the effectiveness of its research and innovation in regard to productivity, food security, and incomes by promoting gender-responsive programming and gender equitable implementation.

Our ultimate goal is to ensure that women benefit from GCFSI's efforts to improve agricultural productivity, reduce poverty, enhanced resilience to climate change, improve food security and nutritional status, and enhance workforce development systems. While we acknowledge that gender is not synonymous to women, GCFSI also recognizes the central role women play in agriculture in most developing countries, as well as the numerous challenges that hinder their full participation in and benefits from food systems activities.

GCFSI’s Gender Strategy (.pdf) outlines GCFSI’s commitment to strengthening its development impact through the integration of gender issues throughout the center’s innovation lifecycle. Specifically, the strategy describes the relevance of gender in GCFSI’s core thematic areas, and the center’s approach to ensuring that a gender-responsive approach is adopted to achieving its goal and objectives.

GCFSI recognizes the potential role of gender as an accelerator or inhibitor of food systems innovations and therefore commits to pursue proactively, as appropriate, innovations with a strong potential to transform unequal gender relations and empower women the food system for food security, poverty reduction, and better nutritional outcomes.