BOLA O. AKANJI
AFRICAN ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, ADDIS ABABA,
OCTOBER, 2011
Outline of presentation
 Food security – economic or social development goal??
 Social and economic correlates of food security in SSA
 Limitations of conceptualization; threat to gender
inclusive growth
 Gender transmissions to food security: Policy
transformation of the CAADP
 Other threats to gender-inclusive growth
 Emerging Issues and policy implications
 Policy recommendations
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Stylized facts about Food (in)security in subSaharan Africa
 Structural problems of the agricultural sector remain a major threat to its
growth
 Institutional factors – policy gaffs and poor governance of resources
 Structural adjustment without structural transformation – macro –micro
growth paradox
 The current food crisis is worsening food insecurity in Africa (statistics are
widely documented)
 The financial crisis is a major factor due to constraint on financial
(aid)flows, reduction in remittances, greater speculation in agricultural
markets
 Climate change poses new threats due to decimation of resources, worst hit
are agrarian communities of African countries without technologies for
adaptation
Gender Role Stereotypes
 Women are central to food security mainly at the subsistence or Small
Farmer Commercialization (SFC) level;
 Resource poor farmers are agents of environmental degradation; are they
agents of adaptation and mitigation?
 Low human development is a symptom of food insecurity – is it also a
cause??
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Evolving phenomena requiring greater research and
new levels of conceptualization (empirical and
conceptual works)
Threats to inclusive growth:
Is food security a social or economic goal in Africa – do we
have the proper conceptualization
 Policy transformation is imminent (via CAADP) – greater
productivity, commercialization, structural transformation
and women farmers??
 Greater corporate interest in African agriculture and new
threats on domestic food production and prices (and land)
 Food Security indicators are closely related to both
economic and social (human development indicators MDGs) mainly via the gender transmission
 Climate change and conflicts over diminishing resources
 Other conflicts (political, domestic etc)
.
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
FOOD SECURITY AND INCOME POVERTY (PPP)3
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Food Security and Economic Transformation
Figure 9a: Trends in Food (In)Security and Female Labour force Participation
Source: unstats/Millennium Indicators
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
FOOD SECURITY AND MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
Figure 1b: Correlation of Food (In)Security with MDG Four - Child Mortality
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
FOOD SECURITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Food security, Human Development and gender Development
Figure 2a: Human Development and Food Security Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa
Figure 2b: Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender Development Index (GDI) Trends in Selected African Countries
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
NEED FOR PROPER
CONCEPTUALIZATION
 What are the gender and human development
transmissions within the Four-Way
Conceptualization?
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Figure 3: A Conceptual Model of Sustainable Food Security and Human Development (Author’s Concept)
SUPPLY SIDE
•Food Availability
(resources and
productivity)
•Food Access (Food
markets, food prices and
livelihood options)
Mediating Gender
Assignments (MDGs)
•Physical
•Social
•Economic
•Cultural
•Environmental
•Political
SUSTAINABLE
FOOD SECURITY
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
DEMAND SIDE
•Food Stability
(Post-harvest /external shocks –
policy and environmental shocks)
•Food Utilisation
(Household and the social
and infrastructural
environment),
Resonates with the 4 Pillars of
CAADP
 Pillar 1: Extending the area under sustainable land management and
reliable water control systems – privatization, commercialization and
commodity value chains (availability)
 Pillar 2: Improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for
market access; - Improved agricultural trade and market systems
(access)
 Pillar 3: Increasing food supply, reducing hunger, and improving
responses to food emergency crises; Building human capital,
infrastructure and institutional capacity (stability and adequacy)
 Pillar 4: Improving agriculture research, technology dissemination and
adoption - Promoting sustainable environmental management and
technological support (stability
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Transmission Channels from Gender to Food
(in)Security (Defeminization)
Food Availability
 Gender constraints on farm resources – land, water, efficient energy sources
will continue to curtail commercialization - productivity and output;
 Policy transformation – specifically CAADP and national policies that
emphasize greater privatization and commercialization – worsen this
alienation of women’s farmers
 Land-grabbing is a new potent threat that will worsen access to land of women
farm enterprises;
 Food security strategies that focus on women as agents (CAADP 3)still retain
elements of old assumptions about gender roles – emphasis on their
subsistence, small farmer commercialization and food aid, rather than on
greater food access via entrepreneurship and inclusive markets
 Climate change poses increasing threat on productivity of poor land-scarce
farmers, in particular women farmers in the absence of adequate adaptation
strategies
 Deeper and more negative gender impacts on food security (output) arise via
the human development nexus: As more and more small farmers are bypassed,
there is has rebound effect of greater food insecurity and wellbeing at the micro-level:
What impacts on achievement of the MDGs?
 Defeminization of agriculture may appear to be the norm as opposed to
much touted feminization; is this good or bad for African agriculture? Is it
good or bad for inclusive growth?
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Transmission Channels from Gender contd (Livelihood and
FLP)
Food Access
Global interest in African agriculture (commodities) and natural
resources and Commodity market development threaten food security
by bypassing community food markets
Female Labour force Participation (FLP) appears to be strongly related
to the central role of agriculture in the economy. The FLP factor is
strongly implicated in food accessibility and food utilization via the
income and agro-industrial channels
 Agricultural growth and changing technology-labour mix has
implications for FLP: what are new possibilities for labour absorption
for rural?
New commodity value chains will provide more agro-based
employment and food access: ability of majority of female farmers to
engage with the process?
 Expanded agricultural markets for women, (e.g cut-flower and other
high-value agricultural systems) - tends to perpetrate other negative
gender effects - wage gaps, poor conditions of work, increasing
informalization and income (food) insecurity
 Increasing female empowerment accompanied with increasing
domestic and community conflicts and violence against women.
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Transmission Channels from Gender to Food
Security (education and infrastructure)
Food Utilization
 Small farmer commercialization tends to threaten household consumption at the initial
stages: Is SFC a threat to food security (utilization/adequacy)
 Gender inequalities in technology access and use dampens post-harvest utilization and
availability
Mother’s education and FLP tend to have positive influence on child nutrition and health,
mediated by time poverty: is there a trade-off between FLP and child care?
 Gender inequalities in access to nutrition and through female life cycle impact on life-long
development; reinforce feminized poverty and food insecurity
Food Stability (environment and conflicts)
 Conflicts - creating greater vulnerability by severing access to community food supply
system; women and children often worst hit.
 HIV-AIDS – infecting households and affecting female workers and carers: impacts on
effective and productive mandays, poverty and household wellbeing: are we addressing
HIV/AIDS from a holistic perspective?
 Climate change poses greater threat of seasonal scarcity, displacement and poverty, in
particular female-headed and female-maintained households
 As we focus more on the greening of economies, we may significantly address climate
change adaptation: how should we best address the mitigation without involving the
stakeholders (resource-poor women farmers)?
 Food and financial crisis – gendered patterns of coping: women’s lack of assets, face
reduced remittances.
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Policy Issues/challenges
 De-feminization – gender inequality or platform for St??
 Inclusive agrarian growth – governance of resources?
 Cultural rigidities about land and entitlement – more
reasons for de-feminization?
 Promote FLP in rural areas – what is the trade-off with
child nutrition and development? Commodification of care
economy??
 Livelihoods in CVD; Policy and budget imperative (social
consideration)
 Women as agents of degradation; also agents of mitigation
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Policy Recommendations
 Inclusive growth policies to focus on Social Policy
Index
 Strategic policy frameworks that integrate gender and
human development into agriculture and food policies;
 CAADP needs continuous re-conceptualization,
 strongly integrate MGDs;
 Gender Action Plans (strategic programmes for women
empowerment) to be conceptualized within extant
agricultural policies
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
New Frameworks for inclusive growth:
 A new mindset about women farmers in agrarian growth
process
 Inclusive growth is “both an outcome and a process. ---it ensures that everyone can participate in the growth
process, both in terms of decision-making for organizing
the growth progression as well as in participating in the
growth itself. --------, it also makes sure that everyone
shares equitably the benefits of growth --- implies
participation and benefit-sharing. Participation without
benefit-sharing makes growth unjust, and sharing
benefits without participation makes it a welfare
outcome” (IPC-IG, undated.)
 Inclusive policy, must safeguard both the social and economic
progress achieved; - share risks and benefits of development actions,
avoid “free riding” and “overburdening of the poor”
 Must continually assess the legislative and other frameworks for
participation in the growth process
Food Security and the Four Pillars of CAADP
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Strategic Programme for Rural Women’s Empowerment:
Engagement with CAADP Pillars
Pillar One: African Women Feed Africa
Pillar two: African Women keep agricultural markets
going
Pillar three: African women’s agency in adaptation and
mitigation of climate change
Pillar four: African Women Light up Africa
Source: UNWomen 2011: Securing the rights and livelihood of rural
women in the context of food crisis and climate change. New York
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011
Policy recommendations contd
 Reverse defeminization through collective action in the governance of
resources
 Agricultural growth (corporatization) must develop around community
production systems and food markets
 Alternative livelihood for poor rural women outside land-based agriculture:
 FLP in CVD, green economy, food aid programmes, emerging high-value
agriculture
Green economy jobs!!!
 New livelihoods around natural resources – land water, forests also
serves to mitigate climate change
 Green economy jobs for low-income women offer smart, efficient
energy solutions and enhance food access vis income channel
 Leverage the ability of women farmers to engage in commodity value chains
– public policy and budgets
 Address human capacity of rural women – to enhance food utilization and
child development (direct cause and effect)
 Food aid programmes – that empower women both in the supply (production)
and distribution systems
Building on Best Practices
 Many strategies have proven beneficial to address the concerns in other
developing countries.
Bola Akanji. Food security, Gender and Human
development. AEC, Addis, 2011