Global forum on food security and nutrition

Priya Rampal, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India

Analogous to the water-diamond paradox, women spend more time doing unpaid household work including child-care and cooking. Social and cultural norms prevent them from asking the males in the household to help out in the domestic work, especially in the rural areas. The household dynamics might not even allow them to cook according to their own preference. Typically, in India, they are also the last to eat in the household.

Given this context, it becomes vital to increase their awareness and education levels. The importance of the first thousand days in a child's life and diet diversity needs to be stressed. Empowering the women is the only way forward to tackling the inter-generational aspect of malnutrition.

Eng Shah Wali “Allokozai”, Rural Rehabilitation Association of Afghanistan (NPO/RRAA), Afghanistan

Thanks a lot for sharing your input about the women empowerment in agriculture for better nutrition and I would like to mention that when we talk about agriculture and nutrition, it is very important to know and consider not only agriculture but know livestock too. Women are traditionally and locally involved in the agriculture and livestock sector in the CDCs level. They produce products regularly in the local area and they know how to feed, how to treat and how to extend their livestock and agriculture. Also livestock is good source for nutrition, each woman knows how to keep, feed, treat and bring extension in their livestock like cows, chicken, goats, fish and bees. Also, daily wage-based poor and agriculture farmers' wives are involved in the cultivation of agriculture seeds, vegetable seeds, and establishment of new orchards. They learn new technology like establishment of greenhouses, fish ponds, and bee keeping.

In our country, Afghan women traditional involved in the agriculture and livestock know the traditional importance of agriculture and livestock issues. Strengthening and empowerment of women is required, and there is a need to conduct different kinds of training for capacity building of them. Only then it will provide sources to earn income, find marketing for their product and in linkages - getting their product to local and supermarkets resulting in regular transfer of their produce to the Baazzar market. It is good way to provide facilities for females to involve themselves in the process of business.

When they have the required trainings and have better capacity, then women will be able to have better knowledge of cultivation, irrigation, water management system, treatment, keeping, feeding, trade and extension of agriculture and livestock. This will help solve their economic problems in the future, and will empower them to be involved in the economic process of the country.

Eng Shah Wali “Allokozai”

East Zone manager

Norwegian Project Office,

Rural Rehabilitation Association for Afghanistan (NPO/RRAA)

Rohit Parasasr, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India

I am happy to see the discussion on interaction of gender with other important aspect of agriculture and nutrition.

We are aware that the sectors (people) with greater improvement in technology (innovation) are better off and others have deterioration in terms of trade. Unfortunately the deteriorating terms of trade for agriculture could have made women worse off within agriculture (in terms of decision making power, purchasing power, comparative higher burden of work)

Given the above situation and large number of population dependent on agriculture makes child born in these household to be more vulnerable. As indicated earlier by Sirajul, mere participation of women in agricultural interventions might not change the above mentioned dynamics. To have a positive impact on nutrition, interventions should bring men as an important stakeholder to be sensitised.

I am citing an unfortunate instance of recent drought of Marathwada (in Maharashtra, India) where a girl child died because of the burden of carrying 70-80 lts. of water a day from a distance of a Km. Startling fact was that the male adult in the region did not considered carrying water as their task even in the stress situation. Perhaps because of the perception that carrying water is a non-income generating activity and ‘unproductive’ human resource- children and women, are supposed to do it.

Can we think of ways or cite any existing policies/initiative or interventions that are sensitive to these intricacies of gender for better nutritional outcome?

Shirin Afroz, Helen Keller International, Bangladesh

Shirin Afroz

Director-Nutrition, Helen Keller International, Bangladesh.

HKI’s experience over more than 35 years of implementing nutrition and food security programs in Bangladesh has been that traditional gender norms can limit women’s ability to leave the household and access to production system. These social norms constrain improved nutrition, and women’s access to secure food sources. The norms reduce interactions between women and men outside the family circle and often restrain women from being active part of the production system within the community. These experience led HKI to challenge these norms by integrating interventions specially aimed at empowering women.

 Nurturing Connections is the signature curriculum by HKI for gender and nutrition in Bangladesh. The aim of the curriculum is to create a safe space and structure activities for communities, where they can directly discuss and challenge existing intra-household inequalities that underlie food insecurity and malnutrition. While the curriculum is oriented around nutrition and food security problems, it also builds skills in communication, assertiveness, and problem-solving. Drawing from HKI’s fieldwork and actual problems faced by local women, it provides family stakeholders (mothers, fathers, and family elders) with the opportunity to discuss nutrition and gender related problems among their peer groups, and then share their perspectives in a mediated, community-group setting.

Nurturing Connections draws on approaches developed through HKI’s integrated gender and nutrition interventions, which have been used over decades of programming in Bangladesh to empower women in improving the nutrition of themselves, their children and family members. The curriculum also has been successful in helping communities talk about the gender-power relations and about highly sensitive topics that are underline caused of gender discriminations. The approaches have also been shown to reduce domestic violence. The approach of the curriculum in not to targeting only women but include their husbands and family elders. At HKI we recognized the importance and fundamental necessity to include all family members to address gender-based discriminations within the household, and bring about change.  

HKI first tested Nurturing Connections in Nilphamari, North-West Bangladesh, in Oxfam-Novib supported Building Equity in Agriculture and Markets project. From project baseline to end line, responses among women indicated increasing from 0 to 65%, reporting they were very confident their husband’s families would support them with a personal problem; from 33 to 97% reporting having a say in child health care; from 8 to 30% receiving husbands’ support in cooking and from 40 to 56% receiving support with child care. 

Internationally, the Nurturing Connections approach has received wide interest and HKI is working to adapt it for use in local context in West Africa and in Cambodia, including a language adaptation.

Our experience has proven that homestead food production and nutrition education program, when combined with a tailored behavior change and gender intervention, can bring better impact for nutrition and wellbeing outcomes.

“During the Nurturing Connections session, I have had an opportunity to learn more about the work of my wife. Previously I was getting indirect information about the project from my wife, because there was no direct engagement of men, that made me think that the project was doing something against our cultural norms/unacceptable with regard to women. But after attending Nurturing Connections I learned about her work and that there is nothing wrong with it”

Bekas Kabiraj, Granganampur Union, Lohagara Upazila, Norail District, Bangladesh.