Gender and food security: cross cutting or crossed out? The challenge of implementing 'gender-just' food security solutions

With over 800 million people going to bed hungry each day, we are not on track to achieve the Global Sustainable Development Goal 2, to end global hunger by 2030. The COVID pandemic and the impact of the war in Ukraine has resulted in further food insecurity. Almost two thirds of those living in food insecurity are women and girls, however the governance of food systems does not have robust mechanisms to protect, promote or include the voices of women and other food insecure populations. A Gender just food security system could ensure that local, regional, national and global solutions to food insecurity are planned through a lens which identifies and addresses gendered inequalities. This chapter explores the challenges to implementing a gender just approach to food security and suggests possible steps forward in promoting the protection, promotion and inclusion of gender in food security solutions. It suggests that focusing on the right to food and nutrition as the key aim, ensuring a people centred approach to food security, where voices of the most vulnerable are included in developing the solutions, so that power imbalances can be identified and addressed. Implementing resourced robust food systems to promote gender empowerment approaches can led to increased food security but this will require a shift from the present corporate led approaches to global food systems. Food sovereignty is presented as one approach that has incorporated a more gendered lens and questions why it has not been invested in or promoted.