OCHA Discussion Paper: Gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa

Executive Summary

It is widely understood that the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing and most neglected crises. Yet it lacks sufficient global focus, resources and urgency. As in so many crises, women and girls are disproportionately affected and shoulder the consequences of protracted neglect, with unconscionable impacts on their safety, life chances and agency.

Gaining a holistic view of the gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is difficult. This is due to a lack of data and prioritization, and the large geographical and socioeconomic terrain covered by both regions. However, what we do know about this crisis is more than enough to urgently address the needs of women and girls.

This discussion paper entails a desk review that examines the existing and emerging impacts of food insecurity on gender equality, particularly women’s and girls’ exposure to gender-based violence (GBV), and their access to education, economic resources, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa regions.

In particular, this discussion paper found that there is:

• A strong risk of profound regression in gender equality gains made to date in the countries of concern (with knock-on effects on broader humanitarian and development outcomes).

• An increasing challenge to reverse what must be recognized as a protracted and growing GBV emergency in the above-mentioned regions.

There is broad consensus that the current food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is protracted, multidimensional and highly gendered, with spiralling impacts on gender equality and food security outcomes. It is driven by interwoven and overlapping factors, including climate change, political instability, conflict, socioeconomic conditions, migration, displacement and, more recently, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Interlinked with these factors are gendered structural drivers of food insecurity, including deeply entrenched gender inequalities and harmful social norms. Gendered risks and impacts of food insecurity include alarming limitations on access to education, SRH rights, and women’s agency and participation, and dramatic increases in different forms of GBV.

Despite women’s major role in food production, gender inequalities and harmful social norms are deeply entrenched in wide parts of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, with myriad impacts on women’s time and agency, and on the food system itself. Women make up approximately 50 per cent of the overall labour force in Africa (African Development Bank, 2015). In the Sahel, women contribute to 40 per cent of agricultural production, 80 per cent of agricultural processing and 70 per cent of agricultural distribution labour regionally (Allen et al., 2018). Despite women’s major contributions to food systems, persistent gender inequalities place them among the most vulnerable groups in the food insecurity crisis.

A lack of access to and control over land and other economic resources are key sources of inequity, food insecurity and vulnerability for women and girls. In the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, women depend heavily on natural resources, such as land for their labour, including for agricultural production, rearing animals and building homes. However, despite women’s centrality in land use, they often do not have equal rights regarding land ownership. While land ownership is a critically important gender equality outcome in and of itself, studies show that as women acquire assets, their household bargaining power can increase, and they play a more active role in household production and consumption decisions, often with positive impacts on food security.

Urgent need for more interventions in SRH rights and services. Food insecurity has important implications for nutrition and health beyond hunger. Poor pregnancy outcomes, such as low birth weights, premature births and gestational diabetes (Borders et al., 2007; Laraia et al., 2010), have long been pressing concerns for humanitarians in the nutrition sector. Research also demonstrates that different forms of GBV, which are shown to increase due to food insecurity (see pg. 17), can have a range of negative implications on nutrition (UNICEF, 2022). Lack of access to food has serious consequences for SRH, including the increased likelihood and worsening of anaemia, especially among pregnant and lactating women (GBV AoR, 2022), and increased maternal mortality (Wilson Center, 2022; UNICEF, 2022). Evidence suggests that during drought periods, households tend to prioritize food-related needs over the protection of women’s and girls’ dignity. This manifests through reduction in girls’ agency when deciding on ways to manage their menstrual hygiene and less access to clean water (GBV AoR, 2022).

Limited access to education and mass unschooling of girls. Girls in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa were already vulnerable to school dropout and a lack of prioritization of their education due to existing and entrenched social gender norms. As food insecurity increases, so do girls’ responsibilities at home. Drought and other climate-related drivers force women and girls to search for water and firewood at greater distances, in addition to their other household-related tasks. These chores consume much of the time that could be spent on education, and they significantly increase women’s and girls’ risks of GBV. COVID-19 and rising food insecurity are causing further mass school closures and girls’ removal from schools, particularly in conflict-affected areas. Girl-less classrooms are a credible risk; local women’s organizations interviewed for this discussion paper noted that the combination of insecurity, economic concerns and hunger (with children reportedly fainting in school) was driving a “mass unschooling of girls.” Emerging evidence points to the prospect of a lost generation of girls, whose rights and access to education are being sharply curtailed by food insecurity.

GBV is dramatically increasing in both regions. Academic and practitioner literature find food insecurity to be significantly correlated with different forms of GBV (Bapolisi et al., 2021). Threat multipliers for GBV in the Sahel include drought, temperature increases, and widespread insecurities due to violent extremism and communal conflicts. Data from across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, while not comprehensive, shows clear patterns of increased levels of GBV and points to the following core trends:

• Spikes in child marriage and harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) and imposed polygamy, are persisting and increasing in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa due to the current food insecurity crisis.

• All forms of GBV, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV), have been exacerbated by the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by rising food insecurity. IPV, in turn, causes some women to flee their homes, which increases their vulnerabilities to other forms of GBV, such as sexual violence or transactional sex in exchange for food and other resources.

• Girls and young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault and harassment. When women and girls travel greater distances for food, water and firewood, they are at risk of attack, sexual assault and harassment from men (Plan International, 2022a). Being removed from school leaves girls more vulnerable to child, early and forced marriage, transactional sex, and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by humanitarian workers.

• Conflict-related sexual violence remains a long-standing concern. As conflicts intensify across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, reports of sexual violence increase, with women and girls particularly vulnerable in public spaces and when carrying out care responsibilities in food insecure households.

• Displaced women and girls are among those most at risk of GBV. As either a climate-adaptive strategy or a necessity due to conflict and food insecurity, patterns of migration and displacement are contributory factors to and a consequence of the current food insecurity crisis. When women and girls are on the move or forced to walk longer distances to access water due to their displacement, the risks of violence against them increase (UN Women, 2022).

• The economic vulnerability of women and girls has led to an observable increase in other forms of GBV, such as sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in exchange for food, including coercion into transactional sex.

• Access to and quality of GBV services are chronically poor and deeply inadequate across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, and extremely limited and stretched in their ability to cope with an increase in GBV cases due to rising food insecurity. Local women’s organizations interviewed for this discussion paper singled out the paucity of clinical care and mental health support for survivors, and the lack of training and capacity-building in GBV services.

• Climate change-related food insecurity deepens gender inequality. Particularly where there is a high dependence on agriculture, such as in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, climate change can act as a direct driver of food insecurity, with all the above-mentioned gendered impacts. Evidence from Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda points to links between climate change and different forms of GBV. Gendered dimensions of climate-induced migration have also been reported, as well as a cyclical link between natural resource scarcity induced by climate change, and communal violence and conflict, in turn with gendered effects.

Read the OCHA Policy Brief on Gendered Drivers, Risks and Impacts of Food Insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa here.