Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A guide for development organizations contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

This guidebook by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) examines how Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSSs) in agriculture can be leveraged to advance gender equality and women's empowerment in alignment with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Analyzing five key standards, the document identifies opportunities for VSSs to improve women's working conditions and decision-making, while warning that without gender-sensitive implementation, they may inadvertently increase women's unpaid labor burdens or reinforce patriarchal norms.

• Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSSs) can indirectly support household food security by promoting sustainable production practices that diversify diets and by increasing incomes, provided women maintain control over those income streams. However, a shift toward certified cash cropping may undermine food security if land is prioritized for cash crops over the subsistence crops typically managed by women.
• While VSSs do not directly promote women's legal rights to land, they can provide indirect benefits to temporary land rights in cases where men have emigrated and the audit requires a landowner's presence. Furthermore, certification can facilitate women's access to credit and productive inputs if producer organizations provide support through premiums or pre-financing.
• VSSs contribute to educational equality by prohibiting child labour, which encourages school attendance for both boys and girls. However, the prohibition of child labour can paradoxically increase the burden on women with young children, making it harder for them to work in fields or for wages unless the standards also mandate the provision of adequate childcare.
• Certification can empower women by increasing their participation in community activities and traditionally masculine areas of household and group decision-making, especially when accompanied by gender equality training. Conversely, without such training, VSSs risk reinforcing patriarchal norms or exacerbating male dominance if men retain control of the income generated from certified products.
• For waged labourers, VSSs generally improve decent work conditions and occupational health and safety by requiring compliance with criteria that exceed national laws. However, on smallholder farms, the additional labour required to meet quality and environmental sustainability criteria is often performed by women as unpaid family labour, increasing their overall work burden without recognition or compensation.

APA

International Institute for Sustainable Development (2019). Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A guide for development organizations contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-brief-en.pdf

Chicago

International Institute for Sustainable Development. Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A guide for development organizations contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. 2019. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-brief-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=International Institute for Sustainable Development |title=Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A guide for development organizations contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals |date=2019 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-brief-en.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{internationalinstituteforsustainabledevelopment2019leveraging, author = {{International Institute for Sustainable Development}}, title = {{Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A guide for development organizations contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2019}, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-brief-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }