| Sumario: | This report details the proceedings of the Regional Workshop on ‘Co-Creating a Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) Learning Agenda for Food, Land, and Water Systems (FLWS) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region’, convened by the CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion Accelerator. The workshop brought together researchers, policymakers, civil society actors, and development partners to assess existing evidence, identify persistent gaps, and co-design a regional learning agenda to inform gender-responsive research, policy, and practice that can advance gender equality and inclusion in the region. Discussions were framed by MENA region’s intersecting challenges of climate change, water scarcity, land degradation, conflict, displacement, and widening inequality. Participants highlighted a defining contradiction shaping gender outcomes in the region - the MENA paradox - where women’s relatively strong achievements in education and health have not translated into commensurate economic participation, leadership, or decision-making power. Despite women’s substantial and growing contributions, female labour force participation within agriculture and rural livelihoods remains among the lowest globally.
A central theme that dominated the workshop discussions was the growing feminisation of agricultural labour driven by male migration, changing employment patterns, and crisis-related disruptions. While women’s participation in agriculture, fisheries, and food systems is increasing, this has not resulted in greater recognition, agency, or leadership. Instead, women are concentrated in informal, low-paid, and insecure forms of work, with limited voice in households, producer organizations, and policy processes. This feminisation without power was consistently identified as a defining feature of agrifood systems across the region. Participants emphasized that deeply rooted structural barriers continue to constrain inclusive transformation. These include restrictive gender norms and patriarchal practices, persistent wage inequality, limited access to and control over land and productive assets, weak access to finance and insurance, exclusion from extension services, irrigation training, mechanisation, and technology, and weak representation of women in cooperatives, producer groups, and governance institutions. The absence of reliable, accessible, and gender-disaggregated data further reinforces women’s invisibility as farmers and workers, undermining accountability and evidence-based policymaking.
The evidence review presented at the workshop identified eight recurring patterns shaping gender inequality in MENA’s food, land, and water systems. These include feminisation of agriculture without power or recognition; persistent gender wage gaps and precarious employment; extremely low levels of women’s land ownership linked to discriminatory inheritance systems; weak collective organization and underperforming cooperatives; and limited access to finance, technology, mechanisation, irrigation, and training. Although promising innovations exist—such as in-kind finance, bundled services, gender-responsive advisory systems, and norm-change initiatives—their scale and sustainability remain limited.
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