Can innovations in agri-food systems deliver gender equity and resilience?

Johnstone, K., Thazin Aung, M. and Barrett, S. 2023. Can innovations in agri-food systems deliver gender equity and resilience? International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Briefing October 2023. London: IIED.

Agri-food systems constitute a huge proportion of global jobs and economies, but are failing to provide healthy diets, equitable livelihoods and sustainable practices. Women in rural areas are highly prominent in the sector and most vulnerable to climate impacts.

Co-designing and bundling innovations could offer significant opportunities to achieve better outcomes. We reviewed the evidence base to explore how social and technical innovations can contribute to household resilience and gender equality. The findings suggest that combining different types of sociocultural and technical innovations into bundles (STIBs) offer a promising way forward, if they are appropriate for the context.

This briefing provides a framework for agri-food practitioners to implement STIBs across contexts, stressing the importance of participative processes and understanding the contextual gender dynamics to build household resilience. Highlighting a huge evidence gap, the study calls for stronger evaluation and learning mechanisms and greater investment in rigorous, longitudinal studies.