This post was written by Olawunmi Ilesanmi, Ignacie Tumushime and Jack Elliot — The Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture and Development, Texas A&M University.

As March is Gender Equality month, we close the month by celebrating the resilience of female farmers globally who transcend odds to nurture the soil and feed the world. One of such women, who is an organic grower in sub-Saharan Africa, raised her voice to say, “women need ownership, access to resources and capacity strengthening; information is constantly changing […] We must advance our trade and the standards must not be lowered simply because we want to produce. We need more women to be interested in inspection and technical capacity building.”

The emergence of evidence-based understanding on the role of women in advancing world prosperity is instrumental to providing transformative opportunity structures that promote the safe trade of agricultural products. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Policy Framework for Africa is one such structure which promotes the safe trade of agricultural products. The framework also supports women in advancing agricultural trade, which serves to promote economic livelihoods through capacity-strengthening activities, such as strategic informational workshops, training sessions and easily accessible online resources.

In 2019, the African Union Commission’s Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment (AUC-DARBE) led an effort to create the SPS Policy Framework for Africa. It was developed in close consultation with African Union (AU) member states, regional economic communities and technical and development partners, including USAID and the United States Department of Agriculture. One of the AU’s goals in operationalizing the framework is to develop strategies to protect human, animal and plant health centered on safe consumption and exposure across the agricultural value chain, while bolstering safe trade relations among member states. Safe trade is a priority, as contained in the Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihood. It is also buttressed in the AU’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.  At its core, the SPS Policy Framework for Africa is aligned with the World Trade Organization (WTO) SPS Agreement, which advocates adaptations of protective measures depending on the country of origin for its members.

Women need to be engaged in SPS measures

Women need knowledge and participation in agricultural opportunity structures to be empowered. Researchers at the Norman Borlaug Institute of International Agriculture and Development sought answers by conducting a purposeful knowledge inquiry on smallholder female farmers and female agricultural educators across Africa to assess their understanding of the SPS Policy Framework for Africa and its attendant opportunities. They observed a gap in awareness among respondents and a heightened need to sustainably bridge the gender gap, which is evident when poor access to information and resources exists. One agro-farmer from the survey expressed frustration with the multiple inspection agencies, repetitive assessments and documentation required for export, which increases the costs of intra-African trade.

Trade can be a driving force for women’s economic empowerment because it creates job opportunities for skilled workers and increases incentives to undertake schooling. This is particularly beneficial for women who have traditionally received less education than men, as is particularly the case currently in many developing countries. Women can play an active role in services, agriculture and manufacturing as cross-border traders, producers and entrepreneurs.

Considering that the World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Africa with a record fatality of 137,000 lives annually from food-related diseases, over 90 million hospitalizations with children bearing the highest brunt and the number of export rejections in the European Union countries and United States due to noncompliance with the international SPS, producers and trade players should improve the quality of agricultural products throughout the agricultural value chain. It’s important that women in agribusiness are educated on the international SPS standards for food safety (Codex Alimentarius), animal health (World Organisation for Animal Health [OIE]) and plant health (International Plant Protection Convention [IPPC]).

The role of the SPS Policy Framework for Africa, through its objectives outlined in Figure 1, are designed to advance intra-African and intercontinental trade. When gender is taken into consideration during the implementation of the SPS Policy Framework for Africa, including training and easy access to resources, women will be better equipped to overcome the challenges they face during the trade process and be able to generate more income and enhance the lives of their families.

There is no time better than now for women in agribusiness to be educated, empowered and engaged in SPS measures. This action will allow women to embrace the opportunities embedded in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which promotes gender-responsive strategies.