P-37 Gender Analysis of Caribbean Food and Nutrition Security Policies to Enhance Noncommunicable Disease Reduction Strategies
Author(s):
L Dunn , Ta Samuels , W Jones
Year of Presentation:
2022
Objective: To assess coherence between food and nutrition security policies, global and national commitments to gender equality in CARICOM, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines and to suggest entry points for including gender perspectives as part of strategies to reduce the high levels of non-communicable diseases.
Design and Methods: In July 2020, gender was used as an analytical tool to review food security and nutrition policies in the caribbean community (CARICOM) including the three member states which were the study sites for the IDRC-funded project ‘Improving household nutrition security and public health in the CARICOM’, (fan). Gender analysis tools were used to assess coherence between commitments to gender mainstreaming and the four food security and nutrition policies reviewed.
Results: Coherence varied in integrating gender in the four food security and nutrition policies reviewed. Three policies used some gender-sensitive language, but there was limited use of sex-disaggregated data and gender indicators for monitoring and evaluation.
Conclusion: To improve coherence between policy commitments to gender equality, promoting food and nutrition security and reducing risks of non-communicable diseases, public health policy makers and practitioners should adopt a rights-based approach to public health and adopt gender mainstreaming as a strategy to improve gender equality in health outcomes. Key entry points include: gender budgeting; training public health practitioners to integrate gender issues in health policies and programmes, using inclusive gender-sensitive language in policies to identify vulnerable groups; collecting and analysing gender disaggregated data and developing gender indicators to support monitoring and evaluation.