Search
FAO has enhanced its efforts to prevent and mitigate GBV through community-driven initiatives, including Dimitra Clubs, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), Youth and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (YJFFLS), Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School (WE-FBS), and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach. These programmes empower individuals and foster collective action, effectively addressing gender inequalities and enhancing safety. By engaging both women and men, they create platforms for dialogue, social norms shift education, and shared responsibility, driving positive change in communities and contributing to the reduction of GBV risks.
View MoreFAO has enhanced its efforts to prevent and mitigate GBV through community-driven initiatives, including Dimitra Clubs, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), Youth and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (YJFFLS), Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School (WE-FBS), and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach. These programmes empower individuals and foster collective action, effectively addressing gender inequalities and enhancing safety. By engaging both women and men, they create platforms for dialogue, social norms shift education, and shared responsibility, driving positive change in communities and contributing to the reduction of GBV risks.
FAO has enhanced its efforts to prevent and mitigate GBV through community-driven initiatives, including Dimitra Clubs, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), Youth and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (YJFFLS), Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School (WE-FBS), and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach. These programmes empower individuals and foster collective action, effectively addressing gender inequalities and enhancing safety. By engaging both women and men, they create platforms for dialogue, social norms shift education, and shared responsibility, driving positive change in communities and contributing to the reduction of GBV risks.
View MoreFAO has enhanced its efforts to prevent and mitigate GBV through community-driven initiatives, including Dimitra Clubs, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), Youth and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (YJFFLS), Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School (WE-FBS), and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach. These programmes empower individuals and foster collective action, effectively addressing gender inequalities and enhancing safety. By engaging both women and men, they create platforms for dialogue, social norms shift education, and shared responsibility, driving positive change in communities and contributing to the reduction of GBV risks.
A specific guidance (“How can we protect men, women and children from gender-based violence? Addressing GBV in the food security and agriculture sector”) and a policy brief (“How can food security interventions contribute to reducing gender-based violence?”) were developed to introduce FAO staff and relevant partners to both the relevance and practical know-how of addressing GBV in food security and agriculture interventions. The Guide specifically calls upon FAO and partner staff to contribute to the protection of all human rights, including the right to a life free from GBV.
- Improve understanding of the different forms of gender-based violence, their causes and consequences, and how they directly and indirectly affect the agriculture sector, food security and livelihoods;
- Better define FAO responsibilities and identify the best opportunities to address GBV;
- Provide practical information and tools to inform protection and GBV analysis at each stage of the project cycle.
A network of field ethics focal points has been created to receive and escalate complaints related to sexual exploitation and abuse. Trainings have been conducted for focal points on ethics procedures and the handling of these complaints, as well as on Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) and FAO's PSEA procedures.
In 2015 FAO hired a consultant, Gender Expert (Gender-based violence and food security), to develop an FAO-specific Guidance on addressing gender-based violence. The aim of the Guidance titled, 'Protection from gender-based violence in food security and agriculture interventions: A Guide for FAO and partner staff' is to assist FAO country offices in designing and delivering food security and nutrition interventions in ways that prevent and mitigate gender-based violence and contributes to the protection of survivors and those most at risk.
At the field level FAO is working on the prevention and mitigation of GBV through specific programmes and approaches such as the Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools in Uganda and Kenya, the Dimitra Clubs in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Burundi and Senegal, and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach in South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya, among others. The JFFLS and Dimitra Clubs use empowerment approaches to bring men and women together to proactively work on issues they face in their daily lives, including GBV. Today there are approximately 1,500 FAO-Dimitra Clubs in sub-Saharan Africa (Burundi, DRC, Ghana, Niger and Senegal), with over 35,000 direct beneficiaries and 350,000 indirect beneficiaries, two thirds being women. Programmes implemented as part of the SAFE initiative reduce the risk of exposure to violence that predominantly women and girls face whilst collecting firewood in some of the contexts FAO works.
In March 2016 a webinar on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Food Security and Nutrition interventions was delivered, available to all staff, as part of the roll-out of the new corporate guidelines. Tailored guidance will be provided to staff working on projects in decentralized offices during 2016 and 2017.