Evaluation of FAO’s contributions to Sustainable Development Goal 2

Abstract

Many of those being left behind are women and girls, who face the compounded effects of gender-based and other forms of discrimination. They have limited access to productive resources, services, institutions and economic opportunities, such as education, healthcare, clean water and decent work.

This review assesses three of FAO’s many rural women’s empowerment approaches and practices for their contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2, zero hunger) – Dimitra Clubs, gender-sensitive value chains and the Joint Programme on Accelerating Progress Towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (JP RWEE).

It finds that FAO’s investment in rural women’s empowerment makes a strong contribution to the SDGs in general and SDG 2 more specifically, leading to increased production, higher incomes and better nutrition. Women’s empowerment also contributes to SDG 5 by working to eliminate all forms of violence, boost the participation of women in leadership and reduce women’s work burden. However, it is a challenge for FAO to take gender mainstreaming fully on board, as it has constrained capacity for gender analysis and mainstreaming efforts. The gender team also has limited personnel, so cannot be responsible for all mainstreaming work.

The study recommends that FAO step up its efforts to institutionalize approaches that are gender transformative to achieve impact at scale. Moreover, gender mainstreaming should be owned by the entire Organization, not just the Gender Unit. For this to happen, FAO leadership must support this agenda and champion a more systematic way of integrating gender.