| Sumario: | Women’s effective leadership and representation are key to achieving just and resilient agrifood systems. Globally, women are acknowledged as key actors in agrifood systems, participating in on and off farm activities, in different nodes of agricultural value chains, at different scales, and across the public sector, private sector and civil society (CFS 2024, Morgan et al. 2024). Women in all their diversity occupy leadership roles across agrifood systems, in agricultural cooperatives and producers’ organizations, large agribusinesses, and agrifood-related governmental and non-governmental institutions and decision-making fora. However, there is a “dramatic imbalance” between women’s enormous and essential contributions to agrifood systems and their leadership and decision-making power (Gerli 2015). Deep-seated and structural barriers, such as discriminatory legal and policy frameworks, social and cultural norms, perceptions of women’s leadership, as well as unequal access to resources and capital, constrain (and sometimes reverse progress on) women’s voice, agency, and leadership. The result is not only inequality, but also missed opportunities: when women do not have meaningful decision-making power, the unique experiences, expertise, and solutions they can contribute are overlooked. There is growing global momentum toward women’s leadership in the agrifood sector. The recently agreed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) ‘Voluntary guidelines on gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment in the context of food security and nutrition’ encourage governments to “promote the full, equal, effective, inclusive and meaningful participation and engagement of all women and girls and their organizations” and to “strengthen women’s leadership and women’s – and women’s rights’ – organizations, including Indigenous women’s and rural women’s organizations” in decision-making processes related to food security, nutrition, agriculture and food systems (CFS 2024, 17). In addition, the recently launched ‘Commit to Grow Equality’ process led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations explicitly encourages different stakeholders to make commitments on the sub-theme of enhancing women’s leadership in agrifood systems.
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