Gender and Sustainability: Learning from Women’s Farming in Africa

Abstract

Africa was the only continent not to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of 50% poverty reduction. This paper asks whether Africa will fare better in meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) addressing poverty and hunger by 2030. To answer this question, we examine a diverse body of literature and provide relevant longitudinal data collected over 13 years of field research. We find that ‘sustainable development’ is a failed concept immersed in the contemporary global economic system that favors growth over ecosystem stability and international institutions that undervalue women’s capacity for sustainability in their care-work as food providers. We examine barriers to women’s farming (climate change, gender bias, limited access to land, technology, finance) and provide examples of women’s innovative strategies for overcoming barriers in their care practices toward family and community well-being and ecosystem health. We find that Africa will likely repeat past failures without community-level interventions that empower women to achieve SDGs on poverty, hunger, gender equity, and ecosystem management. We uncover similar holistic thinking in women’s agricultural practices and scientific conception of ‘ecosystem services’.