A/HRC/22/50 survival increase by 20 per cent when the mother controls the household budget. 3 Improving the education of women and, thus, their economic opportunities, not only can make a substantial contribution to a country's economic growth,4 it is also the single most important determinant of food insecurity. A cross-country study of developing countries covering the period 1970-1995 found that 43 per cent of the reduction of hunger was attributable to the progress of women's education, almost as much as increased food availability (26 per cent) and improvements to the health environment (19 per cent) during that period combined. An additional 12 per cent of the reduction of hunger were attributable to increased life expectancy of women, so that we owe in total 55 per cent of the gains against hunger during those 25 years to an improvement of women's situation within societies.5 6. Third, discrimination against women as food producers is not only a violation of their rights, it also has society-wide consequences, because of the considerable productivity losses entailed. Access to productive resources such as land, inputs, technology and services are decisive in explaining the difference in yields between male and female smallholders; the greater ability for men to command labor, both from (unremunerated) family members and from other members of the community, also plays a role. Evidence suggests that countries where women lack land ownership rights or access to credit have on average 60 per cent and 85 per cent more malnourished children, respectively. 6 Moreover, according to a recent review, 79 per cent of existing studies on fertilizer, seed varieties, tools, and pesticide use concluded that men have higher access to these inputs. 7 One study in Burkina Faso found productivity on female-managed plots in Burkina Faso to be 30 per cent lower than on male-managed plots within the same household because labour and fertilizer were more intensively applied on men‟s plots. 8 Yet, the literature also shows that with equal access to inputs, yields for men and women are very similar. 9 In 2010, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concluded that "if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30 percent. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5– 4 percent, which could in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17 percent".10 7. Access to food can be secured (i) by obtaining incomes from employment or selfemployment; (ii) by social transfers; or (iii) by own production, for individuals who have access to land and other productive inputs. This report examines how, at each of these 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 M. Walsh, Women in Food Aid Interventions: Impacts and Issues, Time for Change: Food Aid and Development (Rome, WFP, 23–24 October 1998). D. Abu-Ghaida and S. Klasen, "The costs of missing the Millennium Development Goals on gender equity", World Development, vol. 32, No. 7 (2004), pp. 1075–1107. L.C. Smith and L. Haddad, Explaining child malnutrition in developing countries: A cross-country analysis,, Research Report 111 (Washington, D.C., IFPRI, 2000). OECD Development Centre, Atlas of Gender and Development. How Social Norms Affect Gender Equality in Non-OECD Countries (Paris, OECD, 2010); The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Women’s economic empowerment to foster food security: case studies from developing countries (The Hague, 2011). A. Peterman et al., A Review of Empirical Evidence on Gender Differences in Nonland Agricultural Inputs, Technology, and Services in Developing Countries (Washington, D.C., IFPRI, 2010), p. 6. C. Udry, "Gender, agricultural production, and the theory of the household", Journal of Political Economy, vol. 104, No. 5 (1996), pp. 1010–1046. C. Udry et al., "Gender differentials in farm productivity: implications for household efficiency and agricultural policy", Food Policy, vol. 20, No. 5 (2005), pp. 407–423. FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-11. Women in Agriculture (Rome, 2010) (hereafter SOFA 2010), p. 40. 5