These briefs are intended for organizations and activists engaged in advocacy on SRHR, gender and sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. They aim to provide a snapshot of how SRHR links to the new Agenda 2030 framework laid out by the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) and the 6 entry-points it identifies, provide brief evidence from the context of Asia Pacific, and illustrate how fulfillment of SRHR helps countries in the region achieve just and sustainable development using the development justice framework of Asia Pacific Regional Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (AP RCEM). The briefs have been developed by members of the AP RCEM Thematic Working Group (TWG) on Gender, Sexuality and SRHR, and supported by the co-coordinator of the TWG.
INTERLINKAGES BETWEEN GENDER, SRHR AND ENTRYPOINT 3
Food, nutrition, and agriculture links to the fulfilment of many fundamental human rights and across Agenda 2030 and all the SDGs, with a standalone Goal on Zero Hunger (Goal 2). Building sustainable food systems and healthy nutrition patterns is particularly relevant for Asia-Pacific. The region bears the triple burden[i] of malnutrition: the coexistence of undernutrition, obesity and overweight, and micronutrient deficiencies[ii]. It is home to nearly half a billion people who lack regular access to adequate food and about 260 million without access to clean water at home.[iii]
The majority of the world’s hungry (80%) are employed in labor-intensive food production and require additional calories to sustain themselves.[iv] However 80% of the world’s extreme poor and 75% of relative poor live in rural areas and most work in agriculture. The FAO estimated 805.3 million people globally were chronically undernourished between 2012-2014 with two thirds in Asia,[v] and 60% of the world’s undernourished in 2013 were women and girls.[vi]
Women have a central role in addressing hunger and malnutrition and making agriculture and food systems more sustainable.[vii] Their involvement in the food chain is critical as producers, consumers, and home managers. They are 2 to 6 times more likely than men to carry the burden of collecting water[viii], to fetch firewood to prepare food and manage domestic work. In the Pacific, subsistence farming is a way of life for most people and support from governments in terms of commercial food farming remains low, leaving many vulnerable to climate change impacts.
In Asia Pacific, women disproportionately suffer from moderate and severe food insecurity. Pervasive gender bias is a critical factor[ix] behind malnutrition and the undernourishment amongst women and girls, which directly impacts their SRH. Gender norms and customs dictate differential feeding and caregiving practices that privilege boys and men. Low birth weight amongst surviving babies of undernourished mothers can lead to stunted growth and cognitive impairment. Pregnant and lactating women, women of reproductive age, adolescent girls, and infants and young children who have specific nutritional and dietary needs are especially worse off during natural disasters, failed crops, climatic events and resulting food shortages, and often suffer increased levels of violence.
Women and girls are denied decision-making and leadership roles in food chains; face harmful cultural norms and practices (such as child and forced marriage, inheritance deprivation); enjoy lower health and nutritional status; have lower access to education, employment opportunities, land, natural resources, agricultural inputs, technology, extension services and markets; face financial and political exclusion; and unending gender-based violence, social injustice and disempowerment.[x] Their autonomy as food producers is usually limited and they seldom benefit from agricultural research and development.[xi] Food insecurity is also found markedly higher for women-headed households as they adjust their dietary choices to low-quality food translating into lower nutrition.[xii]
POLICY COHERENCE
At the 1974 World Food Conference governments proclaimed that every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties. In 2012, the WHO Comprehensive Implementation Plan on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition, highlighted the need for a multifaceted, multisectoral, lifecycle approach to address the burden of malnutrition globally. The internationally agreed Food and Agriculture Organization’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, 2012, further connected social stability, housing security, rural development, environmental protection, and sustainable social and economic development through regulations across different forms of tenure, including public, private, communal, indigenous, customary and informal, for increasing food security and reducing malnutrition.[xiii] The 2nd International Conference on Nutrition (2014) agreed to raise global awareness about the need to transform food systems for better diets and a healthier planet.
Today, there are four widely accepted dimensions of food security: availability, access, utilization (through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met) and stability (adequate food at all times). The report of the UN Secretary General on the 53rd CPD[xiv] urges nation states to integrate nutrition within UHC in order to expand nutrition coverage and boost health outcomes. The 53rd CPD’s draft Political Declaration on Population, Food security, Nutrition and Sustainable Development in the Context of the Coronavirus Disease also underscores the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women, women of reproductive age, adolescent girls, young children and infants, especially during the first 1,000 days, and calls for countering the devastating impact on food security, nutrition and livelihoods of people under COVID-19. It suggests encouraging family farming and positioning of food within social protection systems, while ensuring that commitments under ICPD, BPfA and CEDAW are also upheld by 2030.
EVIDENCE FROM ASIA PACIFIC
- Across Asia only 10.7% of women owned land compared to the global average of 20% and 18.6% in Africa in 2014[xv]
- Close to 489 million people remain undernourished[xvi]. While prevalence of undernourishment dropped from 17% in 2000 to 11% in 2017, hunger will not be eradicated in the region by 2030. After decades of steady decline, the number of people who suffer from hunger began to slowly increase again in 2015.
- Nearly one third of women of reproductive age are undernourished.[xvii] Malnourishment heightens their susceptibility to both infectious and non-communicable diseases[xviii], and undernutrition in pregnancy can increase chances of obstructed labour, premature births, low-birth-weight babies, and postpartum hemorrhage.[xix]
- Asia has two thirds of the world’s hungry people and the highest number of undernourished people (525.6 million) in the world[xx]
- While on the decline, some of the highest rates of stunting are found in South East Asia, with over 40% children affected in some countries and over 50% at the sub-national level.
- At the same time, the rate of obesity in the region continues to climb and poses a cost upward of 0.78% of regional GDP, or $166 billion annually.[xxi]
- In at least 20 countries, the proportion of children under age 5 who are moderately or severely overweight has increased since 2000, and in some cases the rate has more than doubled.
CONCLUSION
Hunger and malnutrition in all its forms have gender and age dimensions, and are closely linked to health outcomes, including SRHR. Benefits from improved food and nutrition are accelerated if accompanied by access to adequate education, SRHR information, education and services, clean water, and necessary hygiene and sanitation.[xxii] Policies and support programs need to be inclusive and participatory with trackable investments dedicated towards reshaping underlying social structures and practices that precipitate higher nutritional deprivation and food insecurity amongst women, girls, LGBTIQA+ people and those belonging to religious/ethnic/caste-based minorities, and indigenous, migrant and refugee/displaced communities.
Women's needs are central to framing food security and food sovereignty policies and programs that integrate SRHR. Investments in women’s nutrition and SRHR also brings dividends in terms of improved health security for their children, families, and entire communities. Including out-of-school CSE in farming communities can ensure that women are made equal partners in the production of food in the Pacific, and for agrarian societies can directly impact the types of food being farmed for families and thus dietary intake.
More attention is needed to address the complex relationship between migration, health, food security and nutrition as food insecurity and hunger are among the chief drivers of migration for both men and women. In the post COVID-19 world, it is crucial to rethink food systems and patterns of production and consumption through appropriate subsidies for food producers, people-centered policies, integrated support for nutrition, education, health services, water and sanitation, food price stability and curbing of artificial shortages and market distortions to ensure people will not have to choose between exposure to a virus and starvation.
Written by: Sarah Zaman
ENDNOTES
[i] FAO (2018). State of Food and Agriculture in Asia and the Pacific Region, including Future Prospects and Emerging Issues. Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific.
[ii] Includes prevalence of anemia, vitamin A and iodine deficiency in pregnant women.
[iii] ESCAP (2020). COVID Report.
[iv] UN Special Rapporteur: Agro-ecology is the answer
[v] FAO/ IFAD/WFP (2014). The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014: Strengthening the Enabling Environment for Food Security and Nutrition.
[vi] ADB (2013). Gender Equality and Food Security-Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Hunger.
[vii] APRECM (2020), Position paper on Entry Point 3: Food Systems and Nutrition Patterns.
[viii] ADB (2013). Gender Equality and Food Security-Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Hunger.
[ix] ADB (2013). Food security in Asia and the Pacific.
[x] ADB (2013). Gender Equality and Food Security-Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Hunger.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] FAO (2012). The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.
[xiv] UN Session Report, 53rd CPD (30 March- 03 April 2020), Programmes and interventions for the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development in the context of population, food security, nutrition and sustainable development.
[xv] UNDP (2014).
[xvi] ESCAP Statistical Online Database. Available at http://data.unescap.org/escap_stat/
[xvii] UN WOMEN/ ADB (2018). Gender Equality and the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia Pacific.
[xviii] Lancet (2019). Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.
[xix] UN Session Report, 53rd CPD (30 March- 03 April 2020), Programmes and interventions for the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development in the context of population, food security, nutrition and sustainable development.
[xx] FAO/ IFAD/WFP (2014). The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014: Strengthening the Enabling Environment for Food Security and Nutrition.
[xxi] Matthias Helble and Kris Francisco, “The imminent obesity crisis in Asia and the Pacific: first cost estimates”, ADBI Working Paper Series, No. 743 (Tokyo, Asian Development Bank Institute, 2017).
[xxii] ADB/ FAO (2013). Gender equality and food security—Women’s empowerment as a tool against hunger.
