Katrina Kosec, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has called for the empowerment of women and vulnerable people to address the challenges of food crises.
Kosec stated this in during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), at the sideline of the Nigeria’s Presentation of IFPRI’s 2023 Global Food Policy Report on Friday in Abuja.
The occasion also featured the Launch of Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a research initiative on Fragility, Conflict and Migration (FCM).
She said empowering women amidst crisis situations was important, knowing that food system resilience must include enhancement of livelihoods.
According to her, the first step is to increase equity which involves improving the quality of gender – disaggregated data collected before and during crisis situations.
She said efforts must be made to increase women’s political participation in their communities.
Kosec said women voices must be included in peace processes and high level settings, where policymaking and programme decisions are made to help improve crisis response.
“Policy response can empower and create opportunities for women and also address the adverse impacts of crises.
“It also supports women’s access to resources and technologies that will help them wither crises,”she said.
The research fellow also said that there was need to create effective policy response, with legal protections to account for barriers that women face in participating in food system.She said effective policy response would also help to address the livelihood of gender-based violence, which are likely to increase amid crises.
