Promoting Gender Equality in Foreign Agricultural Investments: Lessons from voluntary sustainability standards

The report examines how foreign agricultural investments interact with gender inequalities across five dimensions: land rights, productive resources, household labour, employment, and decision making. It compares five Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) and five Responsible Investment Frameworks, finding that while VSS focus more on employment conditions, responsible investment frameworks are stronger on land rights. Evidence suggests that VSS often fail to improve women's land ownership and can inadvertently increase women's unpaid labour burdens. The author recommends that investors and host governments adopt explicit gender strategies, ensure women's participation in negotiations, and monitor gender-disaggregated data to prevent the reproduction of local gender inequalities.

• Foreign agricultural investments often exacerbate existing gender inequalities in the Global South, particularly regarding women's access to productive resources, which can reduce female producers' yields by 20–30 per cent.
• Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) generally lack explicit criteria for women's land rights and the protection of access to common lands, which are critical for women's care work and food provisioning.
• Responsible investment frameworks provide significantly stronger guidance on land rights than VSS, including the recognition of women's tenure rights and the need for gender-sensitive implementation of land laws.
• VSS initiatives tend to focus more on employment conditions, such as maternity leave and occupational safety, but often fail to address the gender division of labour that relegates women to low-skilled, temporary work.
• Evidence indicates that certification can inadvertently increase the unpaid labour burden for women, as new quality and environmental requirements are often transferred to them.
• Women are frequently excluded from agricultural training and extension services under VSS because of the false assumption that knowledge will 'trickle down' from male household heads.
• While some VSS and investment projects have improved women's earning power and household status, they rarely succeed in increasing women's representation in high-level decision-making roles within producer cooperatives.
• The report recommends that investors establish dedicated Gender Committees and conduct women-only consultations to ensure that land use changes do not negatively impact access to communal lands.

APA

Sexsmith, K. (2017). Promoting Gender Equality in Foreign Agricultural Investments: Lessons from voluntary sustainability standards. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/promoting-gender-equality-foreign-agricultural-investments.pdf

Chicago

Sexsmith, Kathleen. Promoting Gender Equality in Foreign Agricultural Investments: Lessons from voluntary sustainability standards. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/promoting-gender-equality-foreign-agricultural-investments.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Sexsmith |first1=Kathleen |title=Promoting Gender Equality in Foreign Agricultural Investments: Lessons from voluntary sustainability standards |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=January 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/promoting-gender-equality-foreign-agricultural-investments.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sexsmith2017promoting, author = {Sexsmith, Kathleen}, title = {{Promoting Gender Equality in Foreign Agricultural Investments: Lessons from voluntary sustainability standards}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = jan, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/promoting-gender-equality-foreign-agricultural-investments.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }