For more information on this process click here Chair’s Summary of the Forum: (Photo credits FAO) CFS Forum on Women’s Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition – Chair’s Summary with Draft Outcomes Gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment are central to achieving the CFS vision of fostering the progressive realization of the right to adequate food, achieving food security for all, by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and natural resource management, and improving the lives of people in rural areas with full and equitable participation in decision-making. Without achieving gender equality, the full realisation of, women’s rights and women’s economic, social and political empowerment, especially for rural women, food security and nutrition will not be achieved. The focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment is explicit across all the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), both as a stand-alone goal – SDG 5 – and throughout the Agenda 2030. The objective of the CFS Forum on Women’s Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition (the ‘Forum’) was to discuss the challenges that remain in realizing women’s empowerment, and to promote a shared understanding of how they are evolving in the context of food security and nutrition. The morning session focused on identifying emerging challenges and persisting barriers to women’s empowerment and on legal and policy instruments intended to overcome them. The key messages that emerged from the discussions are synthesized in the following points: (a) The role of women as knowledge bearers and agents of transformation towards more sustainable production systems, including agroecology; (b) The importance of self-association and the role of social movements to promote women’s empowerment, gender equality and women’s rights through women’s leadership and equal participation in decision-making at all levels; (c) The importance of eradicating gender stereotypes and structural discrimination as a pre-condition to address power imbalances; (d) The need to expand the concept of gender disaggregated data beyond statistics and incorporate women’s real life experiences; (e) The importance of recognizing women’s unpaid care and productive work; (f) The importance of political will to foster a cultural change towards the full realization of women’s rights; (g) The need to implement, monitor and adequately resource through gender budgeting the existing normative frameworks as the major contribution to advancing women’s empowerment, women’s rights and gender equality and eliminating all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls; (h) The importance
