Mainstreaming Gender-transformative Approaches at IFAD – Action Plan 2019-2025

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Transforming our world – emphasizes the need for structural transformation. This requires addressing the root causes generating and reproducing economic, social, political and environmental problems and inequities, and not just addressing their symptoms.

According to the 2018 Global Gender Gap Index, there has been global progress on women’s empowerment. However, the world has a long way to go towards gender parity in political and economic leadership. Approximately 1.7 billion women and girls live in rural areas – where the majority of the world’s poor people live. While women make up 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries and more than 50 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, the plots they manage are between 20 per cent and 30 per cent less productive than plots managed by men. This is often due to discriminatory social institutions, formal and informal laws, social norms and practices. These barriers prevent rural households from overcoming constraints to food production, security and nutrition.

It is broadly recognized that providing women and girls with equal access to assets, opportunities, services, decent work and representation in political and economic decision-making processes is important for achieving equity and justice, and essential for sustainable rural transformation.

To heighten its contribution to the 2030 Agenda and its mandate, IFAD is committed to enhancing the impact of its programming on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) through measures including a revised Gender Action Plan (GAP) for 2019 to 2025 in line with the IFAD Strategic Framework.