Vera Weill-Hallie, Chair of WOCAN Board, was one of the speakers at the 42nd Committee on World Food Security (CFS) side event titled Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Gender — Evidence for Equitable, Food Secure and Sustainable Agriculture. The event was organized by the World Bank, GGCA, IFAD and FAO and was held on 12 October in Rome. The discussion focused on the lessons learned from research and field evidence as well as major practical and policy considerations for future gender-responsive CSA interventions to enhance equality, food security and nutrition. Vera raised the importance of measuring women’s empowerment and introduced the W+ Standard, which endorses projects that create increased social and economic benefits for women participating in economic development or environment projects. Vera also cautioned that more analytical work on gender and climate-smart agriculture needed to be done, and signaled that the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by countries to the UNFCCC did not place a sufficient focus on gender.
Other panelists were
- Clare Bishop Sambrook, lead technical specialist for gender at IFAD,
- Dr. Martin Frick, Director of Climate, Energy and Tenure Division at FAO
- Marc Sadler, World Bank Adviser on risks and markets in agriculture
