Gender equality and social inclusion in food systems transformation pathways: evidence from Eastern Africa

Abstract

Food systems are deeply inequitable yet sustainability in food systems cannot be attained without gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). Through a document review of the food systems transformation pathways (FSTPs) of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, this paper assesses GESI integration in the food systems transformation commitments of the Eastern African nations. The findings reveal that women, youth, smallholder farmers, and persons with disabilities (PWDs) are the key groups experiencing inequality in food systems across the region. A common challenge among these groups is limited access to essential resources such as land, finances, and agricultural inputs. Each country has made context-specific GESI commitments to address these inequalities. These commitments include improving access to resources, strengthening extension services, enhancing skills development for youth, mainstreaming gender equality, and challenging regressive cultural norms. However, despite the potential of these commitments to advance GESI if effectively implemented, several gaps remain. These include limited emphasis on the inclusion of PWDs, despite their recognition as a vulnerable group; lack of clear targeting of specific vulnerable populations in some commitments; absence of measures to address certain types of inequalities that countries have acknowledged; and insufficient focus on tackling the root causes of gender and social inequalities. Based on these findings, the paper offers recommendations to strengthen GESI integration for more equitable and sustainable food systems outcomes.

1 Introduction

Food systems are profoundly inequitable. These inequities are evident in the fact that some people face hunger, others have poor diets, and many experience disparities in livelihoods within food systems (Cabral et al., 2023). For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), although women constitute a significant portion (49%) of the agrifood systems workforce, they often lack land rights, with a gender gap of over 20% in agricultural land ownership. Women also have lower access to financial resources compared to men. In 2021, only 49% of women in SSA had a financial account, compared to 61% of men. Additionally, in 2024, 11.2 million more women than men in SSA experienced food insecurity (FAO, 2025). Similarly, youth, particularly in Africa, face comparable inequities in food systems, despite also comprising a substantial share of the workforce. For example, in 2021, youth made up 36.1% of the agricultural workforce in Uganda and 25.6% in Ethiopia (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025).

The Food and Agriculture Organization FAO (2018) defines sustainable food systems as “food systems that deliver food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised.” There are three sustainability components of a sustainable food system including economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The economic dimension entails fiscal viability of food systems activities, the environmental dimension involves ensuring food system activities have positive or neutral impacts on the environment, and the social dimension encompasses food systems activities that strengthen equity and inclusion and promote positive socio-cultural change (FA0, 2018). Sustainable food systems cannot be realized in the absence of GESI. Gender equality is a state where everyone enjoys human rights, opportunities, and resources equally, regardless of their gender, while social inclusion seeks to promote inclusive societies by addressing the exclusion and inequalities faced by vulnerable populations. Therefore, GESI promotes fair and equitable access to rights, opportunities, resources, and services for all individuals (World Vision, 2023).

In 2021, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) was convened to catalyze global food systems transformation in alignment with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As shown in Table 1, the UNFSS had five action tracks, with Action Tracks 4 and 5 being particularly relevant to GESI. Action Track 4 aimed to address inequitable access to resources and promote inclusive policies. Action Track 5 focused on economic, social, and environmental resilience. The social resilience component specifically sought to ensure broad-based benefits for all by identifying and addressing existing inequalities that prevent individuals from accessing and utilizing resources and knowledge. It emphasized the empowerment of marginalized groups as a pathway to overcoming these challenges. Countries were expected to use these action tracks as guiding frameworks when formulating their food systems transformation commitments (UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, 2021). In response to the summit, countries developed their FSTPs. FSTPs are national documents through which countries highlight their context-specific priority food systems transformation commitments; the commitments are actions intended to achieve their food systems vision.

Existing research has shown that Africa experiences significant levels of inequality, including within food systems (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025; World Bank, 2025). Several studies have assessed the integration of gender in food systems policies across the continent. For instance, Ampaire et al. (2020) and Frimpong-Wiafe et al. (2025) demonstrate that although gender considerations are incorporated into some food-systems-related policies, notable gaps remain. However, these studies primarily focus on gender integration and do not examine the inclusion of other marginalized groups. Research on the integration of groups beyond women in food systems policies is limited, yet inclusive food systems cannot be achieved if such groups are excluded. Additionally, while some studies have analyzed gender integration in food-systems-related policy documents, there is limited empirical analysis of GESI integration within national FSTPs in Eastern Africa. Since FSTPs outline a nation’s food systems transformation commitments, they provide a clearer perspective on national priorities. Therefore, this study aims to assess GESI integration in food systems transformation pathways in Eastern Africa.

2 Methods

This study conducted a document review of the FSTPs from the five Eastern African countries to assess the integration of GESI in their food systems transformation commitments. These countries were chosen because they encounter significant challenges in realizing the goal of zero hunger (Sachs et al., 2024). To obtain the FSTPs, a search was conducted on the UNFSS website,¹ which hosts the FSTPs of all countries. An additional search was carried out on government websites to determine whether newer versions of the FSTPs were available. The search terms used for the government website searches are detailed in a previous study (Jomo et al., 2025). This search yielded an updated version of the FSTP from Ethiopia only, while the FSTPs for the other countries were obtained from the UNFSS website.

The document review involved two main steps, as shown in Table 2. First, it assessed how each country conceptualized GESI. Specifically, this entailed determining whether the FSTP recognized any social group as vulnerable and whether it specified the types of inequities those groups face. Second, it examined the commitments listed in the FSTPs to identify those aimed at enhancing GESI. For a commitment to be considered as promoting GESI, it had to explicitly outline measures to address the needs of vulnerable groups or to foster their inclusion. Table 2 presents the guiding questions used in the assessment. All the GESI-related commitments identified in this step are listed in Supplementary Table 1.

A qualitative thematic analysis was then conducted to:

• Evaluate how each country addressed GESI for its vulnerable groups, that is, what commitments each country explicitly made to support its marginalized populations.

• Assess whether the commitments addressed the identified inequalities. This involved examining whether a commitment responded to a need previously acknowledged by the country. For example, if a country noted that women or youth lacked access to land, this step checked whether a specific commitment was outlined to address that issue.

• Identify any remaining gaps in the integration of GESI within the FSTPs

3 Results

The findings reveal that all five countries acknowledge the existence of vulnerable groups affected by inequality. Women and youth are consistently identified as vulnerable across all FSTPs. Additionally, all but Tanzania explicitly recognize smallholder farmers as vulnerable, while all but Ethiopia acknowledge PWDs in this category. Consequently, women, youth, smallholder farmers, and PWDs emerge as the key groups facing inequality across the region.

Moreover, the FSTPs of all countries, apart from Uganda, highlight specific inequality issues affecting vulnerable groups. In these countries, the FSTPs emphasize that women face limited access to resources, including land, finance, and agricultural inputs. In Kenya and Rwanda, women also encounter challenging business environments that restrict their participation in agribusiness, such as lack of access to extension services, markets, and market information. Rwanda and Ethiopia further acknowledge that social norms hinder women’s participation in food systems, while Kenya’s FSTP notes that women are often excluded from decision-making processes.

Youth and smallholder farmers face similar challenges. For instance, in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda, they have inadequate access to markets and productive resources. Both Kenya and Rwanda also recognize that youth hold negative perceptions of agriculture. Rwanda highlights gaps in skills development, while Kenya points to insufficient data to guide improved agricultural practices. Although youth are acknowledged as a vulnerable group in Tanzania, the specific inequalities they face are not explicitly detailed. Similarly, while all countries except Ethiopia recognize PWDs as vulnerable groups, only Kenya specifies the types of inequalities they face, namely, challenging business environments.

Furthermore, Uganda’s FSTP does not explicitly outline inequality issues affecting vulnerable groups. Nonetheless, its commitments to GESI suggest that these groups face challenges similar to those identified in other Eastern African countries. Table 3 provides a cross-country comparison of the inequality issues affecting different vulnerable groups in the region.

As shown in Table 4, each country has specific GESI commitments for various vulnerable groups. For instance, Ethiopia has pledged to enhance inclusion for women through initiatives such as promoting inclusive social protection programs and improving maternal nutrition. As indicated in Table 3, Ethiopia acknowledged that social and institutional norms hinder women, youth, and smallholder farmers from accessing land, inputs, finance, technology, and innovation. Building on this, Table 4 highlights Ethiopia’s commitment to improving financial access for women through establishing “a finance system for farmers to access credit, obtain insurance services, and receive financial literacy training to support rural and agricultural investment” (Government of Ethiopia, 2024). However, the country lacks specific commitments to address the underlying social and institutional norms that restrict women and youth from accessing other productive resources. This represents a critical gap, especially given the country’s own recognition of these barriers.

Furthermore, as shown in Table 4, Kenya’s commitments to improving inclusivity for women include enhancing their access to financial resources, addressing cultural norms that hinder them, increasing their involvement in decision-making, and improving their access to extension services and nutrition information. Similarly, Kenya has committed to supporting youth by improving their access to financial resources, nutrition information, and digital technologies. While these commitments address many of the inequalities that Kenya has identified for these two groups, there are notable gaps. Specifically, there are no commitments to address the lack of land tenure rights for women, nor are there measures aimed at eliminating the harsh business environments that negatively affect both women and youth, as highlighted in the country’s FSTP. Additionally, as shown in Table 3, although Kenya acknowledges that smallholder farmers face limited access to finance and that PWDs encounter challenging business environments, there are no corresponding commitments to address these issues. This represents a critical gap in efforts to promote inclusivity for all vulnerable groups.

Additionally, Rwanda has committed to providing incentives tailored to women and youth, as well as increasing access to financial services for women, youth, and smallholder farmers. These and other commitments (outlined in Table 4) aim to address the inequalities faced by vulnerable groups (as detailed in Table 3). However, while the country acknowledges that patriarchal attitudes and harmful cultural norms hinder women’s participation in food systems, it has not made any specific commitments to address these barriers. Similarly, although PWDs are recognized as a vulnerable group, there are no targeted commitments to enhance their inclusion in food systems.

Moreover, Tanzania has committed to addressing gender inequalities by promoting gender mainstreaming in its policies. While Tanzania has noted that women face limited access to finance, it does not include a specific commitment to address this issue. However, in its FSTP, Tanzania has other GESI-related commitments which, although aimed at enhancing GESI, do not explicitly target specific vulnerable groups. These commitments are listed in Table 5. Among these is a commitment to ensure equitable access to land, which may be intended to address the challenge of limited land access for women. However, without explicitly identifying the targeted group, women, who are disproportionately affected, may not fully benefit from its implementation. Similarly, although Tanzania recognizes youth and PWDs as vulnerable groups, it does not specify the types of inequalities they face (as shown in Table 3), nor does it include targeted commitments for them. Table 5 does, however, include two commitments aimed at providing social protection and targeted food assistance to vulnerable populations. These commitments do not specify which groups they target but may be intended to benefit all vulnerable groups identified in Tanzania’s FSTP. Nonetheless, the lack of clear targeting presents a gap that may result in missed opportunities for these groups to fully benefit from the implementation of these commitments.

Likewise, although Uganda does not specify the forms of inequality faced by women, youth, smallholder farmers, and PWDs, it has made commitments aimed at increasing their inclusion in food systems. These include expanding financial access for women and youth, and improving access to extension services for smallholder farmers, among other initiatives detailed in Table 4. Uganda has also committed to fostering cultural transformation to promote gender equality. This involves enhancing men’s involvement and support for women and sensitizing the population to shift mindsets around negative and regressive cultural norms that limit access to resources. These efforts, particularly the engagement of men in challenging harmful norms, are notable, as they aim to address the root causes of gender inequality. However, similar to Tanzania, Uganda also has a commitment that lacks clear targeting of the vulnerable groups it intends to reach (as indicated in Table 5), and this represents a gap.

Additionally, while all countries except Ethiopia recognize PWDs as a vulnerable group, Uganda is the only one with a specific commitment to enhancing their inclusion in food systems. Specifically, the country aims to enhance market and credit access for PWDs (Government of Uganda, 2021). However, although this commitment may improve PWDs’ access to markets and credit, it is unlikely to fully address the broader spectrum of inequities they face. As such, this measure alone may not be sufficient to ensure their full social inclusion.

4 Discussion

Through a document review of the FSTPs of the five Eastern African countries, this study demonstrates that all the countries examined acknowledge the critical importance of integrating GESI in food systems transformation, as evidenced by the inclusion of GESI provisions in their FSTPs. The finding that a common challenge facing women, youth, and smallholder farmers in the region is the lack of access to resources aligns with previous studies showing that these groups in Sub-Saharan Africa often lack access to land and financial services (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025; FAO, 2025; FAO, 2015). In addition, earlier research has shown that these groups face other barriers including limited access to markets, low wages, inadequate knowledge and skills, and restricted access to mechanization, among others (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025; FAO, 2025; FAO, 2015). These barriers are also acknowledged by the countries reviewed, indicating a recognition of the structural challenges that may hinder vulnerable groups from fully contributing to and benefiting from food systems transformation. The recognition of these challenges and the commitments made to address them represent a critical step by the reviewed countries toward promoting inclusive food systems. Studies have shown that neglecting these structural inequities can undermine the potential benefits of food systems transformation, whereas promoting social equity enhances sustainability (El Bilali et al., 2021; Marrero et al., 2024). Nonetheless, clear opportunities remain to deepen GESI integration in the food systems of these countries to ensure more equitable and sustainable outcomes.

To start with, although all the reviewed countries, apart from Ethiopia, recognize PWDs as a vulnerable group, only Kenya specifies the form of inequities they face, and even then, it highlights just one: harsh business environments. However, it is likely that PWDs in the region experience additional forms of inequity beyond this. For instance, research indicates that PWDs are at heightened risk of food insecurity since they face unique challenges within food systems, such as limited access to food environments and difficulty affording food due to income disparities (Henly et al., 2023; Swenor, 2021). The limited recognition of these challenges by the reviewed countries suggests that minimal research has been conducted to identify the context-specific barriers PWDs face in fully participating in and benefiting from food systems. This aligns with findings from other studies, which highlight the frequent exclusion of PWDs from food systems research and policy, including in the UNFSS (Moore et al., 2021; Swenor, 2021). Without a clear understanding of the specific inequities affecting PWDs, it is difficult to develop informed and effective strategies to promote their inclusion. This gap is further illustrated in Table 4, where only Uganda, among the four countries that acknowledge PWDs as a vulnerable group, has made a commitment to improve their access to markets and credit. This represents a significant shortfall in efforts toward inclusive food systems transformation. To truly achieve inclusivity, it is imperative that PWDs be meaningfully integrated into food systems transformation initiatives.

Additionally, there lacks specific commitments to address some forms of inequality highlighted by the countries. This represents a critical gap, especially given the countries’ own recognition of these barriers. It illustrates that while certain forms of inequality are being targeted, others remain unaddressed, thereby reducing the overall effectiveness of the GESI measures. Similarly, to further increase the effectiveness of GESI measures, intersectional issues among vulnerable groups should be considered. Kuran et al. (2020) argue that an intersectional perspective should serve as a guiding principle in risk management, as it helps identify the overlapping factors that contribute to the formation of vulnerable societal groups. An intersectional lens also reveals the ways in which these overlapping factors perpetuate inequities within specific contexts. Therefore, in this case, applying an intersectional lens would help identify all forms of inequality that a vulnerable group experiences, ensuring that measures are put in place to address them comprehensively and thereby enhance GESI.

Moreover, some commitments do not explicitly target any specific vulnerable group. The lack of clear targeting may result in the most vulnerable populations being overlooked during implementation, further diminishing the impact of the GESI measures. Another potential challenge that may arise during the implementation of the commitments is the risk of unintended consequences, which may further exacerbate inequities. For example, some of the countries reviewed are committed to increasing inclusion of marginalized groups in food systems by expanding their access to digital technologies. While increasing access to technology is a constructive approach, Candel et al. (2025) caution that it may inadvertently reinforce existing disparities within the food system. For instance, research has shown that the needs of women are often overlooked in the development of technology (Tufan et al., 2018; Marimo et al., 2020). Additionally, women in Sub-Saharan Africa are 13% less likely to own mobile phones and 29% less likely to use mobile internet compared to men (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025). Similarly, youth experience varying levels of access to and affordability of digital technologies (FAO, 2025). These disparities highlight the importance of ensuring that GESI commitments are implemented in ways that account for existing inequalities. Therefore, all GESI-related initiatives require careful and inclusive implementation to avoid exacerbating the very inequities they aim to address.

Furthermore, only a few commitments directly address the root causes of gender and social inequalities yet research has shown that addressing the root causes of inequality is essential for achieving lasting social change (Njuki et al., 2022). Without confronting cultural norms, other measures aimed at increasing equity among vulnerable groups may fall short. For example, a study conducted in Kenya found that social norms prevented women farmers from fully accessing and benefiting from digital services (IDinsight, 2024). Similarly, another study in Ghana revealed that although women were provided with loans to purchase irrigation pumps (an intervention that increased their profits) cultural norms limited their control over decisions related to assets, income use, farm production, and workload. As a result, the impact of the loans was significantly diminished (FAO, NRI, AWARD, 2025). Therefore, transforming attitudes and beliefs about vulnerable groups is a critical step in promoting social equity, as cultural norms play a significant role in shaping social (in)equality and influencing both individual and collective well-being (Venance et al., 2025; Walther, 2025). Given the powerful role of culture in either exacerbating or reducing inequalities, it is essential for Eastern African countries to foster cultural transformation that actively supports the advancement of social equality.

4.1 Strength and limitation

The focus of this paper is primarily on the FSTPs, as they are the main documents countries developed following the UNFSS to outline their national food systems transformation commitments. Therefore, they provide a clearer perspective on national priorities. However, assessing only the FSTP documents may distort the reality of GESI integration within food systems at the country level, since other national policy documents may reflect deeper GESI integration.

5 Conclusion and recommendations

The food system transformation commitments outlined in the FSTPs of Eastern African countries contain key GESI provisions that, if effectively implemented, have the potential to enhance gender and social equality within food systems. However, certain gaps remain, presenting opportunities to deepen GESI integration for more equitable and sustainable outcomes. Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations should be considered to further strengthen GESI in the food systems transformation efforts of Eastern African countries:

• To increase the impact of GESI measures, governments should enact strategies to address all forms of inequalities within their food systems. They should also explicitly specify the vulnerable groups targeted by each commitment to ensure that the most marginalized population are not excluded during implementation.

• Governments should invest in research aimed at identifying the context-specific challenges that PWDs face in Eastern Africa, which hinder their full participation in and benefit from food systems. The findings from such research should then inform the development of targeted strategies aimed at enhancing the inclusion of PWDs in food system.

• To promote sustainable social change, governments should directly address the root causes of gender and social inequalities by fostering cultural transformation.

• To avoid exacerbating inequities, governments should ensure mindful implementation of all GESI commitments.

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