UN Call for Experts - Gender and Climate Smart Agriculture - Jobs in Kenya

UN Call for Experts - Gender and Climate Smart Agriculture - Jobs in Kenya

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

In line with the UN Women Regional Architecture, the Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESARO) under the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme recognizes the need to support women in agriculture to fully and equally participate in decision-making at all levels for the development of appropriate policy interventions; the deployment of more effective tools, technologies, infrastructure and institutions to implement measures to build resilience; and the achievement of sustainable resource management for resilient green value chains.

Investing in women’s economic empowerment sets a direct path towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth. Particularly in Africa, gender-responsive services, production resources, markets in agriculture, industry and trade would enhance economic empowerment of women and youth extensively.

This is because women and youth make enormous contributions to economies, whether in businesses, on farms, as entrepreneurs or employees, or by doing unpaid care work at home and in the community.

In the agriculture sector, Women remain key players and make up almost 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 2011).

They play a vital role in ensuring family food security.

However, gender-based inequalities in access to and control of productive and financial resources inhibit their agricultural productivity and undermine their resilience and sustainability efforts, creating a substantial gender gap in agricultural productivity.

There is evidence to show that CSA strategies are unlikely to be effective, let alone equitable or transformative, without active attention to gender (Bernier et al., 2015 in World Bank et al., 2015). This implies that an integrated approach for addressing the factors driving the gender gap in agricultural productivity is necessary in order to support women’s access to CSA practices and approaches.

Duties and Responsibilities