CONTEXTUALISNG POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND GENDER PRACTICE IN FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA

Abstract

From Africa perspective, women are inferior and less powerful when compared to their male counterparts. The aim of the paper is to interrogate what should be the roles of women as against their natural domestic callings. In addition to being relegated to the background of domestic affairs, most women function as food producers, at least, at the subsistence level. These dual roles are mostly unpaid, under-valued, and therefore hardly accounted for in monetary terms. Rather than being beneficiaries of development having also contributed to it, women not only lack access to relevant inputs to be productive in agriculture, but also actually become major victims of associated untoward fallouts of developmental processes. Climate change-induced stresses and ecological damage in most African states exacerbate the burdens of women's role in agriculture. Materially and methodologically, anchored on feminism; with specific focus on liberal feminism, this paper investigates the agricultural role of women in Africa and the practices undermining it. The result of this paper is to guarantee region-wide food security through women empowerment as against the globalised system that is patriarchal in nature.  The conclusion drawn from this paper is that issue of food security and the practice of agriculture should consider the plights of women and girls to ensure sustainable development holistically.