Glossary

Adaptation (in relation to climate change impacts)
Adjustments in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities.

Adaptive capacity (in relation to climate-change impacts)
The ability of a system (individual, household or community) to develop resilience and adjust to climate-change risks (including climate variability and extremes) to respond to potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, or cope with climate consequences.

Agency
The ability of people to identify their goals, make choices and then act upon them. Agency can take multiple forms, such as bargaining, negotiation or resistance. Women can exercise agency in many ways, including as individuals, collectively, within the family and through their participation in markets, politics and formal and informal networks.

Agricultural holder
A civil or judicial person who exercises management control over an agricultural holding operation and makes major decisions regarding resource use. The holder has the technical and economic responsibility for the holding and may undertake all responsibilities either directly, or delegate the daily work management to a hired manager.

Agricultural, rural and structural transformation
The process by which low-income societies, in which agriculture absorbs most labour and generates most economic output, become high-income societies characterized by a relatively smaller but more productive agricultural sector. Structural transformation involves the reallocation of economic activities away from agriculture and natural resources to industry and services, expanded domestic and international trade, increased specialization and division of labour, and increased rural-urban migration. It also includes the urbanization of the countryside, combined with a reduction in birth rates and a greater participation of women in the workforce. Agricultural transformation is both a cause and effect of structural transformation – involving productivity-increases in agriculture and a shift from subsistence farming to commercial, highly diversified production systems and value chains. Rural transformation captures all aspects of agricultural transformation, and also includes emergence of livelihood- and income-generating opportunities in the rural, non-farm sector.

Agrifood systems
Agrifood systems comprise the entire range of actors and interlinked activities that add value in agricultural production and related off-farm activities such as food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal and consumption. Agricultural production refers to primary crop, livestock, fisheries and forestry production.

Disaster risk reduction
Programmes and practices targeted at avoiding (prevention) or limiting (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development. Denotes both a policy goal or objective, as well as strategic and instrumental measures employed for anticipating future disaster risk, reducing existing exposure, hazard or vulnerability, and improving resilience.

Empowerment (of women and girls)
The expansion in the ability of women and girls, and other marginalized populations, to make strategic life choices and to transform these choices into actions and outcomes in a context where this ability was previously denied to them.² This relates to equal enjoyment of human rights, development of capabilities and increased access to resources and opportunities. Empowerment requires building agency to use these rights, capabilities, resources and opportunities strategically in order to transform societal structures and processes that perpetuate inequalities and cause discrimination against women and girls.

Feminization of agriculture
The increased concentration of women in agricultural production with the concomitant decrease of men in the agriculture sector.

Gender
Socially constructed roles, identities and expectations of women and men, and the differences between them. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time. Other factors such as class, age, marital status, health status, disability status, sexual orientation and race determine the distribution of roles, power, and resources between men and women.

Gender analysis
Analysis of the different roles of women and men in order to understand what they do, what resources and capacities they have, what their needs and priorities are, and the power relations between them. It provides the basis to identify and address inequalities in policies and programmes.

Gender-based violence (GBV)
Any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, based on gender differences. It is a widespread and life-threatening health, protection and human rights issue with serious negative consequences not only for survivors but also for the achievement of food security and the social and economic development of communities and states. Most survivors of GBV are women and girls who suffer a range of physical and mental health problems, stigma and discrimination, affecting their ability to earn incomes and participate in public life.

Gendered division of labour
The way work is divided between men and women according to gender roles, or what is considered suitable and valuable based on gender. This does not necessarily concern paid employment only, but more generally the work, tasks and responsibilities assigned to women and men in their daily roles within and outside the household and community, including unpaid or care work.

Gender equality
Indicates a state in which women and men enjoy equal rights, opportunities and entitlements in civil and political life. It implies their equal participation in decision-making, their equal ability to exercise their human rights, their equal access to and control of resources, services and the benefits of development, in addition to equal opportunities in employment and in all other aspects of their livelihoods.

Gender equity
Implies fairness and impartiality in the treatment of women and men in terms of rights, benefits and obligations so that resources and opportunities are distributed fairly between them. This often requires allocating additional resources targeted to women in order to overcome longstanding inequalities in accessing means of self-improvement and empowerment. This process leads to gender equality.

Gender integration
The process of applying strategies in programme and policy planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to consider gender norms and compensate for gender-based inequalities. The gender integration continuum includes several approaches:

• - Gender-blind approaches

  • Approaches that ignore gender aspects, gender differences and gender relations and may reinforce existing inequalities.

• - Gender-responsive approaches

  • Approaches that acknowledge, recognize and address the specific barriers, needs, priorities and outcomes of men and women based on the social construction of gender roles.

• - Gender-transformative approaches

  • Approaches that seek to examine, challenge and transform the underlying causes of gender inequalities rooted in discriminatory social structures. As such, gender-transformative approaches aim to address the unequal gendered power relations, discriminatory gender norms, attitudes, behaviours, and practices as well as discriminatory or gender-blind policies and laws that create and perpetuate gender inequalities. By doing so, these approaches seek to eradicate the systemic forms of gender-based discrimination by creating or strengthening equitable gender relations and social structures that support gender equality.³

Gender mainstreaming
The process of assessing the implications for men and women of any planned action – including legislation, policies and programmes – in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making the concerns and experiences of women and men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that they benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.

Gender norms
Define and govern what is expected, appropriate and acceptable behaviour for men, women, boys and girls. Gender norms are learned early in life, shaped by belief systems, can differ within and among cultures, and depend on ethnicity, social class, age and other socioeconomic factors.

Gender parity
The equal representation of women and men in a specific area. Gender parity is a key component for achieving gender equality.

Gender relations
Indicate the ways in which society defines the rights, responsibilities and identities of men and women in relation to one another.

Gender roles
The behaviours, tasks and responsibilities that a society considers appropriate for men, women, boys and girls.

Inclusivity
An approach used to ensure that everyone, regardless of their social, economic or political status and identities (including race, ethnicity, gender, age, beliefs, geographical location, health status, migrant status), is fully and actively involved in and benefitting from development processes.

Increasing women’s voices
Implies ensuring that women have an active, meaningful and participatory role in making and influencing decisions in all spheres (public and private), which is central to achieving change and boosting their leadership and political participation. The full and equitable inclusion of women in all stages of decision-making is critical for effective oversight and implementation of gender-equality commitments. Women’s meaningful inclusion requires capacity, open spaces to engage and influence policy dialogue, transparent and accessible information, and recourse mechanisms.

Intersectionality (in relation to gender)
An approach used to study, understand and respond to the ways in which gender intersects with other social factors and/or personal characteristics/identities linked to age, ethnicity, education, wealth, health status, disability status, and how these intersections combine to influence unique experiences of privilege, social exclusion and discrimination.

Labour-saving practices and technologies
Tools, technologies and practices used in farming and non-farm enterprises to make the tasks of men and women easier, increase labour productivity and change farming practices to methods that use less farm power. Labour-saving technologies and related services can contribute to freeing up women’s time and improving their quality of life, enabling them to engage in activities of their own choice, whether for the home or remunerative in nature, as well as invest in their education.

Mitigation (in relation to climate change)
The use of human interventions to prevent or reduce emissions or enhance sinks of greenhouse gases. It involves the implementation of technological changes, such as cultivation practices, or substitution of technologies (such as substituting fossil fuels).

Non-food agricultural production
The production of non-food products such as forestry, animal rearing, feedstock and biomass used to produce biofuels, oilseeds transformed into oleo-chemical products, starch producing polymers for biodegradable plastics, or fibres used in textile and automotive industries

Occupational segregation (by gender/sex)
The extent to which occupations are segregated and distributed in a specific sector based on the gender/sex of workers.

Participatory approach
A process in which individuals or groups share knowledge, ideas, opinions, votes, materials, resources, labour and finances in order to reach a common consensus, or to make joint decisions in a transparent way.

Resilience
The ability to prevent disasters and crises as well as to anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recover from them in a timely, efficient and sustainable manner. This includes protecting, restoring and improving livelihoods systems in the face of threats which impact agriculture, nutrition, food security and food safety. Resilience is the ability of people, communities or systems that are confronted by disasters or crises to withstand damage and recover rapidly. In the context of agrifood systems, it refers to “the capacity over time of agrifood systems, in the face of any disruption, to sustainably ensure availability of and access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all, and sustain the livelihoods of agrifood systems’ actors.”

Sustainability
The ability of socio-ecological processes and activities to produce long-term environmental, social, technical, financial and cultural benefits. FAO’s vision for Sustainable Food and Agriculture is of a world in which food is nutritious and accessible for everyone, and natural resources are managed in a way that maintains ecosystem functions to support current and future human needs.

Vulnerability (in relation to climate change)
The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard – including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Therefore, adaptation can also include efforts to address these components.