Gender, youth and inclusion integrating gender across Alliance and CGIAR research. Women in food, land, and water systems play multiple roles as farmers; managers of land, seed, and domestic animals; entrepreneurs; wage workers; and more.

The “9 Briefs Series” by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT explores critical dimensions of gender, youth, and social inclusion within food, land, and water systems.
Our vision at the Alliance is to foster gender-equitable, socially inclusive food systems and landscapes that sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish all people. Through evidence and innovations, we aim to enhance equality and inclusion.

This series of nine briefs highlights key research approaches and findings on gender, youth, and social inclusion. Each brief includes a curated list of selected publications and explores specific themes such as:

1. Integrating gender across Alliance research: An introduction to the 9 briefs series and an explanation on how gender is integrated across Alliance and CGIAR research.
2. Our approach to gender research at the Alliance: It emphasizes the need for high-quality, disaggregated data and the implementation of gender-transformative approaches to close gender inequalities in agrifood systems, highlighting strategies for scaling successful interventions and supporting women’s empowerment.
3. Inclusive market systems and entrepreneurship: What capacities, assets, and skills does it take for market systems to benefit women and young people? What policies, norms, and practices need to change for women and marginalized people to fully participate in agricultural and food market systems? This theme covers women’s roles in market systems, from production to sale to consumption, their workloads and leisure time, and their aspirations.
4. Gender in restoration, on-farm crop management and agroecology: How do policies and practices for agroecology, ecological restoration, and farm management affect women’s agency, assets, and livelihoods? And how do women’s and men’s priorities, knowledge, and aspirations shape restoration and agroecological practices, and forest and farm management outcomes? New, growing areas are those of gender and agroecology, and gender-transformative approaches to strengthen women’s land rights, including through restoration.
5. Gender and climate action: This theme considers equitable design of, access to, and benefits from climate-smart technologies and climate services. Strong, growing research areas are gender-equitable climate policy and putting it into action, gender and climate security, and gender and climate finance.
6. Gender, biodiversity, and seed systems: Strong themes are revaluing traditional and indigenous knowledges and practices as a basis for nature-positive, equitable solutions, rethinking seed systems and seed businesses to be more inclusive and profitable, and inter-generational sharing of agrobiodiversity knowledge.
7. Digital inclusion: While digital financial services are transforming people’s lives, not all population segments benefit equally, especially women. We co-design digital financial services for diverse value chain actors, especially women entrepreneurs with small and medium businesses. We explore how to reduce the gap between women’s and men’s access to, use of, and benefits from digital technologies and financial tools in food, land, and water systems.
8. Gender, crop improvement, and other technologies: New, growing research areas are gender-sensitive product profiles, and demand-led, gender-sensitive breeding.
9. Strategic analysis for impact with a gender focus: We measure and evaluate the impact of different food system indicators and changes occurring toward key outcomes while accounting for the role of gender along the impact pathway. Our research aims to uncover determinants that influence women’s adoption of technology and innovation, and unveil the profound impact that these have on household resilience, welfare, and women’s empowerment.

Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture.