Women as key players in greening Mediterranean food systems: drivers and challenges – Union for the Mediterranean – UfM
May 10 2023
Monday 5 June 2023 | 12:00-14:00 (CEST) – In the framework of the EU Green Week and in collaboration with the event organized by PRIMA on “Empowering Women Championing the Green Transition in the Mediterranean”, the SFS-MED Platform involving UfM, FAO, PRIMA and CIHEAM is inviting you to the fifth technical webinar of a series about the levers for food systems transformation.
This webinar aims to discuss drivers and challenges for strenghtening women’s participation and leadership in the greening of Mediterranean food systems. Bringing together representatives from civil society, agri-food enterprises, research centres, international organizations and governments, the webinar will provide a forum to exchange knowledge and concrete experiences about the role that multiple stakeholders can play in promoting the effective participation of women to greener, more sustainable and more resilient food systems in the Mediterranean.
All across the Mediterranean, women contribute to food systems at multiple levels, be it as food producers, innovators, researchers, consumers, or decision-makers. As such, they can play a key role in the “green transition” of Mediterranean food systems, aimed at achieving a neutral or positive impact on the environment, increasing resilience to the impact of climate change, and promoting a more sustainable management of natural resources.
However, as documented by the new comprehensive FAO report on “The Status of women in agrifood systems”,significant gender gaps persist that undermine women’s potential. The data presented in the report clearly show that, while women have gained more access to some resources – such as digital technology and financial services – over the past decade, the gaps are either unchanged or growing in far too many areas, particularly for rural women.
If not combined with efforts to ensure equity and social inclusion, the green transition of Mediterranean food systems bears the risk to exacerbate existing gender gaps, thus creating further marginalization and inequality. Across the Mediterranean, many women and girls still face considerable challenges in accessing specialized education and training (e.g. STEM subjects), agricultural support and financial services, green job opportunities, and innovative and climate-smart technologies and practices. Despite the progress achieved in the past decades, wide gender gaps are also observed in political participation and decision-making at large, and more specifically in natural resource governance mechanisms, relevant policy processes and climate negotiations.
This event is organized by the SFS-MED Platform, a multi-stakeholder initiative for Sustainable Food Systems in the Mediterranean co-led. by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM), the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), and the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA), as an affiliated project of the One Planet Network’s Sustainable Food Systems Programme.
