Women's History Month: To End Hunger, Women's Empowerment Must Prevail
By Bread Staff
Today concludes the Bread Blog posts celebrating Women’s History Month. It is fitting that it comes a few days after a Capitol Hill briefing on the 2015 Hunger Report When Women Flourish… We Can End Hunger.
Chisholm’s words are apt considering that discrimination is a significant roadblock to women’s empowerment. Because women are key to ending hunger by 2030, their empowerment is vital to the process.
“There is substantial evidence that educating girls, improving women’s health outcomes, and increasing their incomes pays huge dividends for their children, for their families, for their communities and for their countries, said Asma Lateef, director of Bread for the World Institute, during Friday's briefing.
The Hunger Report looks at discrimination as a cause of persistent hunger and makes policy and program recommendations in order to empower women both in the United States and around the world. Increasing women’s earning potential by boosting bargaining power, reducing gender inequality in unpaid work, increasing women’s political representation, and eliminating the wage gap between male and female labor directly contributes to ending hunger.
These issues were discussed during the briefing, which was hosted by the offices of U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Karen Bass (D-CA), Bread for the World Institute and the African American on the Hill.
Panelists included Margaret Enis Spears, director of the office of markets, partnerships and innovations, U.S. Agency for International Development; Ambassador Amina S. Ali, permanent representative, The African Union Mission to the United States; Shari Berenbach, president and CEO, United States African Development Foundation, and Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith, associate for National African American Church Engagement at Bread for the World.
The Hunger Report recommends that in order to improve women’s empowerment and end extreme hunger and poverty worldwide, women should have more economic bargaining power. If women had more control of their income and assets, their bargaining power in both the household and the market economy would increase, as well as their ability to feed and provide for themselves and their children.
According to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, if women in Africa and elsewhere had the same access to agricultural resources as men, they could grow 20 to 30 percent more food. This could move roughly 150 million people of out hunger and poverty!
To achieve this, the U.S. government must increase its investments in agricultural-development programs like Feed the Future. And it should place a stronger emphasis on programming that supports women smallholder farmers when it implements projects.
For more information on the integral role women play in ending hunger and poverty, make sure to read When Women Flourish… We Can End Hunger and also visit Bread Blog.
Tools
from our Resource Library
For Education
U.S. Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
These fact sheets provide a snapshot of hunger and poverty in the United States and in each state plus Washington, D.C.
Bill Analysis: Raise the Wage Act (H.R.582 & S.150)
We cannot end hunger in the U.S. without raising the minimum wage.
Briefing Paper: A Multi-Sectoral Approach to Nutrition. Assessing USAID's Progress.
Better nutrition is a necessary component of a country’s capacity to achieve development goals such as economic growth and improved public health.
For Faith
Unity Declaration on Racism and Poverty
A diverse body of Christian leaders calls on the churches and Congress to focus on the integral connection.
Dear Members of Congress,
As the president and Congress are preparing their plans for this year, almost 100 church leaders—from all the families of U.S. Christianity—are...
In Times Like These … A Pan-African Christian Devotional for Public Policy Engagement
This devotional guide invites deepened relationship with and among Pan-African people and elected leaders in the mission to end hunger and poverty.
Sermon by David Beckmann at Duke University Chapel
Remarks delivered October 1, 2017 at Duke University Chapel in Chapel Hill in North Carolina.
Thank you for inviting me to preach here at Duke University Chapel. And I especially want to thank the Bread for the World members who have come this morning.
Bruce Puckett urged...
For Advocacy
Fact Sheet: Why We Need $150 Million for Global Nutrition Programs
Bread for the World and its partners are asking Congress to provide $150 million for global nutrition in the fiscal year 2020 budget.
U.S. Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
These fact sheets provide a snapshot of hunger and poverty in the United States and in each state plus Washington, D.C.
Fact Sheet: Hunger by the Numbers
In 2017, 11.8 percent of households in the U.S.—40 million people—were food-insecure, meaning that they were unsure at some point during the year about how they would provide for their next meal.