By Venge Nyirongo*, UN Women – The Hunger Games, the famous multimedia franchise, is not far from the truth. It’s no myth that being food-secure is essential for human dignity and to ensure livelihoods and wellbeing.
Mpondo woman in South Africa | Uploaded by Mangomania | Wikimedia Commons
Yet about 842 million people today live in chronic hunger across the world. Although on the decline, the numbers of the undernourished also continues to remain exorbitantly high. Of these, women and girls remain most affected.
The failure to ensure women’s access to nutritious food has an impact on nutrition for children under five years of age, leading to the loss of lives and cognitive or developmental limitations for those who survive. In many cases, the food-insecure and hungry continue to suffer in silence without a voice to appeal for more equality and fairness in the distribution of resources that would alleviate their plight.
Without a doubt, women are key to food security. Globally, women comprise about 43 percent of the agricultural labour force. Their dedication to both food and cash crops is high, although the returns realized from the market favor men more than women.
The African Development Bank estimates that 90 percent of Africa’s food is produced by women in spite of the fact that few women hold titles to the land they work. Because of this, rural women’s contribution to Africa’s agriculture is important for the persistence and success of their families, communities and local and national economies, and to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
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