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Gender and food security in Honduras
- For policymakers
- Summary created: 2022
In a sample of rural households in three departments in Honduras, women were found to have low dietary diversity and food security. Women’s empowerment is hindered by work responsibilities and limited decision-making power regarding accessing credit and productive activities.
This summary, including its recommendations and ideas, was created by Dr Summer Allen and is based on original research. The original research itself was conducted in collaboration with the following researcher.
This study obtained information on a range of topics associated with food security and nutrition, gender, and water access in selected villages of Honduras that were of interest to local civil society organisations in terms of understanding the constraints and planning their programs.
Insights
The data collection, done in 2018, covered 647 households across the departments of Choluteca, Lempira, and Ocotepeque.
Most households surveyed faced high levels of food insecurity and inadequate nutrition. The majority of households had experienced food insecurity within the past 30 days.
Of the households sampled, 71% have changed their diets due to a lack of resources, and 65% have worried that they will not have enough food in the last 30 days.
Only 26% of the women between 12 and 49 years received the minimum dietary diversity.
Access to water and sanitation is also limited, with 30% of the households sourcing their water from a well or river and 51% not treating the water before drinking.
Finally, the results of the Abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) found that 66% of women are disempowered (which is very similar to the results reported from two large studies in Western Honduras).
What it means
Disempowerment is primarily driven by workload and lack of group membership for both women and men but women are further hindered by the inability to participate in credit and productive decisions.
For example, although women participate in livestock and non-agricultural economic activities, many do not have the power to make decisions in these activities. While the results are not representative at the departmental or municipality level, they provide some insight into the constraints for these rural communities. These constraints include access to safe drinking water, sanitation, adequate diets, and income opportunities.
Proposed action
Given the constraints on women's decision-making power, women should be explicitly included in outreach and planning for agricultural programs, and constraints to their participation should be evaluated and considered in project planning
Given the inadequate dietary diversity seen for a majority of women in these rural communities, it is important to understand the factors driving limited diet diversity and provide the necessary resources to improve diet diversity for women
Agricultural programs need to directly account for time constraints already faced by women in rural areas
These findings could help inform the development of agricultural development programs in rural areas of Central America where women's responsibilities are high but their decision-making power is constrained
These findings could help inform planning for food-security focused programs in Honduras such as USAID's Feed the Future program and WFP activities
These findings could help support the need for targeted nutrition education and support programs for women (and children) in rural areas to increase diet diversity
Acknowledgements
Thank you to iDE Global
These insights were made available thanks to the support of iDE Global, who are committed to the dissemination of knowledge for all.
Special thanks to Jasmyn Spanswick for preparation assistance
We would like to extend a special thank you to Jasmyn Spanswick, for their invaluable contribution in assisting the preparation of this research summary.
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