Integrating a Gender Transformative Approach to Food Systems Transformation - Aligning agendas for a greater impact

This brief reflects on the relationship between the sustainable food systems and gender equality agendas, focussing on EU’s evolving engagement in external action. It highlights a paradox in policy and analytical debates: while both transformative agendas have gained prominence and political endorsement, their intersection remains underdeveloped and uneven, with limited guidance on operationalising their synergy. The brief builds on analytical work produced under the ASRAFS (Advisory Services for Resilient Agri-Food Systems) project carried out by DG INTPA. Key findings:

• Gendered power relations structure political, social and economic life, shaping access to assets, time, voice and control over benefits. Food systems are organised through these same power relations, across production, processing, distribution, consumption andgovernance, determining who participates and who benefits.
• Gender is one of the central dimensions along which this power is distributed. As a result, food systems both reflect and reproduce gender inequality. Transforming them therefore means addressing the gendered power relations at their core.
• Investments in food systems, including those considered gender-neutral such as irrigation, storage, roads or market infrastructure, shape power relations and influence who can access, use and benefit from them. 
• EU policies, including the Farm to Fork and the Gender Action Plan III, provide a strong basis for integration of gender transformative approaches in food systems transformation. However, in practice, most programmes just target women as beneficiaries rather than addressing the gender inequalities embedded in how food systems work.
• Integrating further the two transformative agendas through systematic gender analysis performed across programming and budgeting cycles and supported by appropriate financial instruments would turn policy commitments into operational practice and impact.
• Gender monitoring would benefit from capturing shifts in decision-making power, time use and control over income beyond counting women’s participation.