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Fostering an enabling environment for equality and empowerment in agri-food systems: An assessment at multiple scales

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Title Fostering an enabling environment for equality and empowerment in agri-food systems: An assessment at multiple scales
 
Creator Lecoutere, Els
 
Contributor Leah Achandi, Esther
Lubega Ampaire, Edidah
Fischer, Gundula
Gumucio, Tatiana
Najjar, Dina
Singaraju, Niyati
 
Subject agri-food systems
gender and social equality
gender transformative change
structural constraints to equality and empowerment
 
Description Inequalities by gender and intersecting sources of social differentiation in access to resources, exercise of agency, and desirable outcomes persist in agri-food systems in low- and middle income countries. Despite decades of development and theoretical assessment efforts calling for multiscale approaches to addressing inequalities in agri-food systems, common approaches remain specific to a scale rather than holistic.
In this paper, we make the case that achieving lasting equality and empowerment in agri-food systems requires transformative change. This depends on fostering an enabling environment by relaxing ‘deeper’ – often interrelated – institutionalized constraints to equality and empowerment across multiple nested scales of the state, markets, communities, household and individuals. Based on a review of recent literature focused on agri-food systems in low- and middle income countries, we present newly emerging thinking and a status update of key structural constraints to equality at different scales – rooted in policy and discriminatory, formal and informal, social and economic institutions, including norms. We give examples that show how structural constraints to equality at different nested scales are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; demonstrating the need for holistic approaches tackling constraints at multiple scales to foster transformative change in agri-food systems. We recommend designing holistic policy and development programs that combine strategies for relaxing constraints to equality and empowerment at multiple scales using inclusive processes of tailoring and prioritizing. To inform the design of such programs, we present recent evidence of effective or promising strategies for addressing structural constraints to equality that relate to policy, market systems, collectives and norms.
 
Date 2024-08-19T18:31:31Z
2024-08-19T18:31:31Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier https://mel.cgiar.org/reporting/downloadmelspace/hash/038b40f4aaf030c4bb84021322638aba
Els Lecoutere, Esther Leah Achandi, Edidah Lubega Ampaire, Gundula Fischer, Tatiana Gumucio, Dina Najjar, Niyati Singaraju. (1/3/2024). Fostering an enabling environment for equality and empowerment in agri-food systems: An assessment at multiple scales. Global Food Security, 40.
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766/69486
Open access
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0
 
Format PDF
 
Publisher Elsevier (12 months)
 
Source Global Food Security;40,(2023)