Global Food 50/50 2022 Report

Gendered impacts of food systems crises

Across the world, populations are facing severe threats and rising inequalities due to a combination of climate change, environmental degradation, the COVID-19 pandemic and conflict. Food systems, as a result, are in crisis and people are increasingly feeling the impact on their everyday lives. Gender inequalities are woven through food systems, and contribute to unjust food production, access and consumption. Women, historically and now, have less access to healthy food, land ownership and resources for food production than men. Globally, the gap between men’s and women’s hunger has widened with food insecurity now affecting 150 million more women than men.

Global food systems organizations are working to address some of the critical issues facing populations’ access to food and nutrition. The second annual Global Food 50/50 Report assesses whether and how such organizations are integrating gender and equality considerations in their work. It reviews the policies and practices of 51 organizations as they relate to two interlinked dimensions of inequality: inequality of opportunity in career pathways inside organizations and inequality in who benefits from the global food system.

The primary aim of the Global Food 50/50 Report is to encourage food systems organizations to confront and address gender inequality within their organizations and governance structures, and in their programmatic approaches across food systems. A second aim is to increase recognition of the role that gender plays in who runs and benefits from food systems for everybody: women and men, including transgender people, and people with nonbinary gender identities.

Suggested citation: Global Health 50/50, the International Food Policy Research Institute, UN Women, ‘Hungry for Gender Equality: The Global Food 50/50 Report 2022’, Washington D.C.: 2022. https://doi.org/10.56649/WIQE2012