Programme activities aim at addressing the needs of men,women and children in an equal way. This approach is fully in line with the FAO Policy on Gender Equality which stresses FAO’s commitment to:

“advancing women’s and men’s equal voice, agency and access to resources and services in all its areas of work.”

The  Programme thus seeks to:

• increase gender balance in all activities;
• make sure rural women’s interests are represented at both national and global level policy consultations;
• include gender considerations in programme tools, guidelines, and papers;
• identify additional gender issues to be considered while carrying out activities; and
• document the value of a gender sensitive approach.

In this way, the Programme will concretely show how accounting for gender equality in food security programmes contributes to their success.

Specific Activities

The programme is developing:

• automated software for the gender disaggregated analysis of household survey data;
• national capacity for collecting, analyzing and disseminating gender-disaggregated data;
• tools and indicators for measuring the quality and diversity of women’s diets which can be incorporated into national surveys; 
• a methodology for assessing the impact of food security programmes which includes gender related outcomes; and
• e-learning materials and training courses in designing gender-sensitive food security programmes.