GENDER

DISCRIMINATION
Despite the fact that women in developing countries provide the majority of
the agricultural labor, they continue to account for most of the world’s hungry.
Gender discrimination limits a woman farmer’s access to agricultural inputs,
credit services and a market to sell her products. These constraints lead to
lower crop yields, produce sold at a lower price and, ultimately, continued
poverty and hunger for her and her children. Gender-equal access to these
agriculture resources could increase the average woman farmer’s crop yields.

Given the opportunity to generate and control an income, women routinely

invest significant portions of their income in food, healthcare and education for
their families. Unfortunately, at the moment, the majority of women in
developing countries lack economic power, resulting in a higher rate of girls
kept out of school, minimal access to basic health care, increased HIV/AIDS
prevalence and higher maternal mortality rates. Yet women continue to bear
almost all responsibility for meeting the basic needs of the family.
A proven way to overcome many systematic barriers to a woman’s success
has been increased participation by women in local, regional and national
legislation as empowered change agents. Although progress has been made
on this goal, the global status of gender representation in parliamentary
houses is far from equal.

The Hunger Project recognizes the prevalence of gender discrimination and

the global imbalance of power and responsibility and empowers women to build
their capacity and self-reliance as a way of overcoming obstacles. We firmly
believe that empowering women to be key change agents is an essential
element to achieving the end of hunger and poverty.
Women’s Leadership Workshops in India, a Women’s Empowerment Program
throughout Africa, and specialized animator trainings worldwide empower
women to seek positions of power and train all of our partners, women and
men, to take responsibility for improving lives in their communities.

What We Do
o Provide access to microfinance. At our epicenters across Africa, tens of
thousands of women food farmers are increasing their incomes through our
training, credit and savings program, and strengthening their clout in the
marketplace.
o Empower elected women representatives. Campaigns such as SWEEP
(Strengthening Women’s Leadership in the Electoral Process) identify and
empower elected women representatives throughout India. Many
participants go on to become elected women representatives. These
representatives are now effective change agents for ending hunger in their
villages. They form district-and state-wide federations to ensure that their
voices are heard at top levels of government.
o Promote community leadership roles for women. Our Women’s Empowerment
Program (WEP) empowers women to change mindsets about gender
discrimination to become strong leaders in their households and
communities. In Africa, every Epicenter Committee – a council that is elected
to be responsible for all epicenter activities – must include an equal number
of women and men.
o Celebrate and empower girl children in Bangladesh. The Hunger Project
catalyzed the formation of a 300-organization alliance that honors National
Girl Child Day each year. This day gathers tens of thousands of people in
events focused on eradicating all forms of discrimination against girl children.
The alliance also functions as the National Girl Child Advocacy Forum
throughout the year, and THP-Bangladesh serves as the secretariat. In
2011, the United Nations formally recognized October 11 as the International
Day of the Girl.
o Halt the spread of HIV/AIDS through education and awareness building. Our
HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Campaign was launched in 2003. African
leaders who were willing and able to confront the gender issues fueling the
spread of HIV/AIDS designed workshops to empower communities to
transform the conditions that fuel the disease. Since then, the workshops
have reached millions of participants.
OUR APPROACH
Gender is a priority theme integrated across all of the Technical Centre for
Agricultural and Rural Cooperation’s (CTA) work.
CTA’s gender work focuses on two key issues: boosting investment on women owned
agribusiness development and enabling women beneficiaries to access preferential or special
support product and services – ranging from financial grants to weather-based index insurance.
CTA works with a wide range of partners in the agricultural sector in this regard. The
organisations include networks of women owned businesses as well as cooperatives, youth
 organisations and private sector information and communication technologies (ICT) service
providers.
KEY FOCUS AREAS
Ensuring that women have access to and control over the resources, skills and knowledge they need to increase
their productivity and income is the key to empowering women in the agricultural sector.

 Access to profitable agricultural markets and business services

 Business and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge
 ICTs and knowledge management capacity
 Participation on policy processes

Gender Mainstreaming Cycle

A practical guide to integrating the gender perspective into a
policy/programming cycle

Integrating the gender perspective in a policy means that equality between women and
men, as the overarching principle, should be taken into consideration in all decisions, in
each phase of the policy-making process, by all the actors involved.

The policy process is understood as a multi-stage cycle, including defining, planning,

implementing and checking (monitoring and evaluating). In many cases, these stages
are turned into a cycle, with each step being repeated as changes occur. For example,
when a policy is evaluated, it may reveal new problems that need to be addressed for
re-programming.

The gender mainstreaming cycle presented here can be adjusted to different public
policy/programming processes. The chart below refers to the specific stages of the
cycle and the necessary elements that need to be given attention within each
stage. Specific gender mainstreaming methods and tools that should be used within
each of the cycle stages are also included. Some methods and tools, such as consulting
with stakeholders or providing gender equality training to the actors involved, can be
useful in more than one stage. Moreover, it is important to remember that when dealing
with data they should be sex-disaggregated. EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database is a
useful tool that can be used to find reliable, comparable and up-to-date information on
equality between women and men.

EIGE’s collection of good practices should also be consulted as it contains examples of

proven approaches, policies and practices that have been effective in the
implementation of gender mainstreaming strategies in the EU Member States.
For more information on the different stages of the gender mainstreaming cycle, click on
each phase.

Click on a phase for details

Define Tools

 Gender Statistics
 Gender Analysis
 Gender Impact Assessment
 Gender Stakeholders Consultation

Plan Tools

 Gender Budgeting
 Gender Procurement
 Gender Indicators

Check Tools

 Gender Monitoring
 Gender Evaluation

Act Tools

 Gender Equality Training

 Gender-sensitive Institutional Transformation
 Gender awareness-raising

The EU approach to gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is not a policy goal in itself, but a means to achieve gender
equality. Equality between women and men is recognised by the EU as a fundamental
right, a common value of the EU, and a necessary condition for the achievement of the
EU objectives of growth, employment and social cohesion.

Since 1996, the Commission committed itself to a ‘dual approach’ towards realising
gender equality. This approach involves mainstreaming a gender perspective
in all policies, while also implementing specific measures to eliminate, prevent or
remedy gender inequalities. Both approaches go hand in hand, and one cannot replace
the other.

Browse through our Timeline to discover the milestones of gender equality in the EU.

The five principles of gender mainstreaming

 The following five principles hold true for all gender mainstreaming activities and
implementation measures.

1. Gender-sensitive language
 Texts referring to or addressing both women and men must make women and men equally
visible. This applies to, amongst others, forms, documents, telephone directories, texts on the
intranet and the internet, advertising for events, folders, posters and films.
 Attention must also be paid to a gender-sensitive choice of images when preparing public
relations material.
 Leitfaden für geschlechtergerechtes Formulieren und eine diskriminierungsfreie
Bildsprache: 5.45 MB PDF (German)

2. Gender-specific data collection and analysis

 Data must be collected, analysed and presented by gender. Social dimensions, such as age,
ethnicity, income and level of education should also be reflected where possible.
 Gender-specific analysis of the initial situation must provide the basis for all decisions.
 Gender-sensitive statistics: Making life’s realities visible: 2.4 MB PDF
 Data excellence in the Vienna City Administration: Gender statistics and data on
equality 155 Kb PDF

3. Equal access to and utilisation of services

 Services and products must be assessed as to their different effects on women and men.
 It is important to identify:
 Who uses the services (women or men or both)?
 Who are the clients (women or men or both)?
 Who are the target groups?
 Do women and men have different needs?
 Are the different circumstances of women and men taken into account when planning and
designing services?
 Have all target groups access to the same sources of information?
 Who benefits most?
 Which group would suffer most if they could not use the services offered?
 Are the offices providing the service structurally gendered and barrier free, (i.e. the waiting
areas, lighting, access without steps, signage)?

4. Women and men are equally involved in decision

making
 There are binding targets for a balanced gender ratio at all levels of decision making.
 Measures and strategies geared towards a balanced gender ratio must be taken at all levels of
decision making.
 This is also important when appointing working groups, project teams, commissions and
advisory boards, as well as when organising events, e.g. when selecting speakers.
 Workplaces must be structurally gendered and barrier free where possible (e.g. gendered
signage, sufficient lighting, avoiding potentially frightening situations as in poorly accessible
basement archives, access without steps, social rooms for different occupations).

5. Equal treatment is integrated into steering processes

Steering instruments include quality management and gender budgeting, amongst others. It is
important to note that:

 Paying attention to the different circumstances of women and men enhances

 the success rate,
 effectiveness and
 maximum utilisation of staff and funds.
 All targets related to people are defined in terms of full equality and the targets attained are
therefore presented by gender.
 Controlling routine as a matter of course includes gender-specific evaluation of results and a
systematic steering of the gender ratio, in other words, the development and implementation of
(new and adapted) targets, strategies and measures.