Scaling up note: Gender equality and women’s empowerment

IFAD has achieved significant results in promoting innovative gender mainstreaming and pro-poor approaches and processes in its operations, making this an area of IFAD’s comparative advantage.

Women’s representation in IFAD-supported projects continues to increase and they now account for half of all beneficiaries. Agricultural growth is enhanced if both women and men are enabled to participate fully as economic actors. Thus, addressing gender inequalities and empowering women is vital to meeting the challenge of improving food and nutrition security, and enabling poor rural people to overcome poverty.

Evidence demonstrates that in economies where gender equality is greater in terms of both opportunities and benefits, there is higher economic growth and a better quality of life.