In conflict-affected humanitarian settings where there are high levels of food insecurity, women and men face distinct challenges that can deeply affect gender relations. The same is true of food aid.
Recognizing this, food aid delivery in conflict settings is often designed to take into account these gendered impacts and challenges—and sometimes even aims to transform gender relations in a lasting way. However, well-intended actions can have unintended negative gendered consequences, contributing to stigma or the risk of violence.
This blog explores how and why this may be the case and what can be done about it. While there can be negative impacts for both men and women, this piece primarily focuses on women, who often bear a disproportionate share of the burden due to pre-existing gender inequalities, which can be exacerbated by aid.
Gendered impacts of conflict and food insecurity
Conflict profoundly changes the day-to-day realities of individuals, households and vulnerable groups. Gender can have a major influence on how these changes play out. For example, fighting is most often done by men, who thus face the majority of battlefield casualties. As a result, conflict tends to increase the number of female-headed households, who even in peacetime often face significant challenges in accessing income, credit, land and property. And women are particularly vulnerable to conflict-related food insecurity caused by disrupted agriculture, inflated food prices and displacement due to pre-existing structural inequalities that limit their ability to cope and recover.
Conflict often obliges women to take on traditionally male roles and responsibilities—not just in the household but also in the market and wider society, and even in armed struggle. This can sometimes lead to positive change in gender relations, opening new opportunities and changing expectations. In other cases it can increase stigma and put them at greater risk.
Conflict also greatly exacerbates the risk of violence against women. In some conflict settings, up to 70 per cent of women experience gender-based violence compared to 35 per cent globally. Conflict-driven food insecurity can heighten tensions within a household and lead to intimate partner violence. Additionally, armed actors often target women as a war tactic. The combination of structural gender inequalities and women becoming targets can then exacerbate other forms of violence, including ‘transactional sex’ (also known as survival sex) and child marriage.
Three humanitarian approaches and their unintended gendered impacts
The ways that humanitarian actors confront gender issues in their delivery of aid can be summarized in three broad categories: needs-based, instrumentalist and human rights-based. These reflect the actors’ mandates, strategies and biases. All of these approaches are valid, and generally overlap in practice. However, each of them also has potential pitfalls that can contribute to unintentionally harmful impacts.
Food aid based on needs
The needs-based approach prioritizes aid delivery according to assessed needs, regardless of gender or other forms of identity. This approach seeks to embody the humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality. However, it can unintentionally expose women to greater risk in some cases.
For example, needs assessments often result in more women than men benefiting from food programmes. Although women frequently are more vulnerable in conflict settings, emphasizing their heightened vulnerability and beneficiary status can undermine their agency and reinforce gendered power imbalances. Humanitarian messaging often depicts women as victims, sometimes lumping them together with children as in need of protection. Portraying women as passive victims in this way disempowers them and excludes them from decision making, including about how aid is delivered, which can result in their needs being overlooked.
Moreover, food aid delivery that fails to recognize how traditional gender roles have been transformed by conflict can contribute to a regression of women’s improved social standing. For example, livelihood interventions for former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) combatants in Colombia at times portrayed women as victims of highly patriarchal FARC structures, ignoring the roles and power of women within the group. This reinforced traditional gender divisions, for example by offering training in areas like sewing, soap-making and hairdressing, neglecting women’s broader aspirations for equality in decision making and participation even in traditionally male-dominated areas.
Instrumentalizing women for better aid delivery
The instrumentalist approach to gender in humanitarian aid takes advantage of women’s traditional role in the provision and management of food. An example of the instrumentalist approach is giving cash-based transfers (CBTs) to women. The rationale for this practice builds on evidence that women are more likely than men to use the cash for the family’s food, health and education and to buy more varied and nutritious food than men would. Another example is organizations involving women in the targeting, distribution and collection of food rations, based on the assumption that women are likely to use them more efficiently than men.
While the instrumentalist approach emphasizes women’s agency in relation to food, it risks reinforcing traditional gender relations and can even create new risks, rather than transforming power dynamics and promoting gender equality.
For example, while CBTs provide critical financial support and empower women in contexts where they traditionally lack control over money, there is evidence that they can also interfere with men’s traditional authority over household finances, exposing women to harm. In households where gender-based power imbalances are large, CBTs can, in certain circumstances, contribute to violence between partners and the cash being taken by husbands or male relatives.
Women carrying cash may also be at greater risk of being harassed by other community members or robbed by criminals or armed groups. One survey by a CBT programme in Somalia found 20 per cent of female respondents had received threats. More research is needed into how the distribution of CBTs impacts women’s safety, as the existing evidence is still limited and largely anecdotal.
Food aid can also unintentionally worsen violence if it overlooks the unique risks and vulnerabilities faced by men. For example, in cattle-herding communities where herd size determines wealth, power and food security, conflict-driven livestock losses can diminish men’s social standing. Since food is seen as a woman’s domain, men may hesitate to participate in food security programming if it challenges gender norms. The loss of livelihood can breed frustration, increasing the likelihood that men will turn to violence and criminal activity.
Food as a human right
The human rights-based approach to food aid delivery focuses on protecting and promoting people’s rights, rather than simply addressing needs. It views people not as beneficiaries but as rights-holders with entitlements, and implementing organizations and governments as duty-bearers with corresponding obligations. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee embodies this approach in its gender policy, which highlights gender equality and women’s empowerment as key principles in humanitarian work.
In conflict-affected humanitarian settings, opportunities often arise to transform harmful gender relations, redress inequalities and remove structural barriers. Gender equality is seen as necessary for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (zero hunger), where everyone can exercise their right to food. Thus, such opportunities should be taken whenever possible.
However, it must be done carefully and in a conflict-sensitive way. Too strong an emphasis on transforming gender relations can clash with local values and norms (as well as with other humanitarian principles, particularly those of impartiality and neutrality), potentially exacerbating violence against women. For example, in communities where women and girls face high levels of systemic discrimination and barriers to justice, they may face a backlash if they are encouraged to assert their rights. Similarly, when aid is conditioned on the promotion of universal human rights, it may be seen as coercive, creating mistrust or rejection.
Going forward
A conflict-sensitive and context-sensitive, intentional approach to transforming gender relations can mitigate many of the unintended, harmful gendered impacts of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian actors should not only have deep knowledge of local social norms and how they evolve, but they must also set realistic ambitions that balance humanitarian principles and human rights with the risk of unintended consequences.
While local customs are an essential part of regulating social behaviour, they can also be exclusionary and contribute to conflict. Humanitarian awareness-raising efforts should be designed to trigger reflection on exclusionary practices, including the tensions between customs and international human rights law. This can be done more effectively when interventions involve local change agents, including both men and women.
Gender stereotypes whereby women are viewed as household managers or as victims of violence and men as decision makers or as perpetrators of violence need to be questioned and challenged, and can underlie some of the negative gendered consequences of food aid. Instead, food aid delivery needs to be based on a nuanced understanding of the diverse roles, responsibilities and challenges that shape the way women and men experience armed conflict in that particular setting. Gender-transformative programming should be informed by the perspectives of those most marginalized by gender inequality to be truly effective.
Even if women’s empowerment and protection are not the primary objectives of food aid, opportunities and needs in these areas should be systematically analysed and acted on. Humanitarian actors should continually monitor for unintended gendered impacts of their activities. There is also an ongoing need to analyse how food aid can contribute to breaking cycles of violence in the first place.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Dr Caroline Delgado is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Food, Peace and Security Programme at SIPRI.
Dr Simone Bunse is a Senior Researcher in the SIPRI Food, Peace and Security Programme.
In conflict-affected humanitarian settings where there are high levels of food insecurity, women and men face distinct challenges that can deeply affect gender relations. The same is true of food aid.
Recognizing this, food aid delivery in conflict settings is often designed to take into account these gendered impacts and challenges—and sometimes even aims to transform gender relations in a lasting way. However, well-intended actions can have unintended negative gendered consequences, contributing to stigma or the risk of violence.
This blog explores how and why this may be the case and what can be done about it. While there can be negative impacts for both men and women, this piece primarily focuses on women, who often bear a disproportionate share of the burden due to pre-existing gender inequalities, which can be exacerbated by aid.
Gendered impacts of conflict and food insecurity
Conflict profoundly changes the day-to-day realities of individuals, households and vulnerable groups. Gender can have a major influence on how these changes play out. For example, fighting is most often done by men, who thus face the majority of battlefield casualties. As a result, conflict tends to increase the number of female-headed households, who even in peacetime often face significant challenges in accessing income, credit, land and property. And women are particularly vulnerable to conflict-related food insecurity caused by disrupted agriculture, inflated food prices and displacement due to pre-existing structural inequalities that limit their ability to cope and recover.
Conflict often obliges women to take on traditionally male roles and responsibilities—not just in the household but also in the market and wider society, and even in armed struggle. This can sometimes lead to positive change in gender relations, opening new opportunities and changing expectations. In other cases it can increase stigma and put them at greater risk.
Conflict also greatly exacerbates the risk of violence against women. In some conflict settings, up to 70 per cent of women experience gender-based violence compared to 35 per cent globally. Conflict-driven food insecurity can heighten tensions within a household and lead to intimate partner violence. Additionally, armed actors often target women as a war tactic. The combination of structural gender inequalities and women becoming targets can then exacerbate other forms of violence, including ‘transactional sex’ (also known as survival sex) and child marriage.
Three humanitarian approaches and their unintended gendered impacts
The ways that humanitarian actors confront gender issues in their delivery of aid can be summarized in three broad categories: needs-based, instrumentalist and human rights-based. These reflect the actors’ mandates, strategies and biases. All of these approaches are valid, and generally overlap in practice. However, each of them also has potential pitfalls that can contribute to unintentionally harmful impacts.
Food aid based on needs
The needs-based approach prioritizes aid delivery according to assessed needs, regardless of gender or other forms of identity. This approach seeks to embody the humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality. However, it can unintentionally expose women to greater risk in some cases.
For example, needs assessments often result in more women than men benefiting from food programmes. Although women frequently are more vulnerable in conflict settings, emphasizing their heightened vulnerability and beneficiary status can undermine their agency and reinforce gendered power imbalances. Humanitarian messaging often depicts women as victims, sometimes lumping them together with children as in need of protection. Portraying women as passive victims in this way disempowers them and excludes them from decision making, including about how aid is delivered, which can result in their needs being overlooked.
Moreover, food aid delivery that fails to recognize how traditional gender roles have been transformed by conflict can contribute to a regression of women’s improved social standing. For example, livelihood interventions for former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) combatants in Colombia at times portrayed women as victims of highly patriarchal FARC structures, ignoring the roles and power of women within the group. This reinforced traditional gender divisions, for example by offering training in areas like sewing, soap-making and hairdressing, neglecting women’s broader aspirations for equality in decision making and participation even in traditionally male-dominated areas.
Instrumentalizing women for better aid delivery
The instrumentalist approach to gender in humanitarian aid takes advantage of women’s traditional role in the provision and management of food. An example of the instrumentalist approach is giving cash-based transfers (CBTs) to women. The rationale for this practice builds on evidence that women are more likely than men to use the cash for the family’s food, health and education and to buy more varied and nutritious food than men would. Another example is organizations involving women in the targeting, distribution and collection of food rations, based on the assumption that women are likely to use them more efficiently than men.
While the instrumentalist approach emphasizes women’s agency in relation to food, it risks reinforcing traditional gender relations and can even create new risks, rather than transforming power dynamics and promoting gender equality.
For example, while CBTs provide critical financial support and empower women in contexts where they traditionally lack control over money, there is evidence that they can also interfere with men’s traditional authority over household finances, exposing women to harm. In households where gender-based power imbalances are large, CBTs can, in certain circumstances, contribute to violence between partners and the cash being taken by husbands or male relatives.
Women carrying cash may also be at greater risk of being harassed by other community members or robbed by criminals or armed groups. One survey by a CBT programme in Somalia found 20 per cent of female respondents had received threats. More research is needed into how the distribution of CBTs impacts women’s safety, as the existing evidence is still limited and largely anecdotal.
Food aid can also unintentionally worsen violence if it overlooks the unique risks and vulnerabilities faced by men. For example, in cattle-herding communities where herd size determines wealth, power and food security, conflict-driven livestock losses can diminish men’s social standing. Since food is seen as a woman’s domain, men may hesitate to participate in food security programming if it challenges gender norms. The loss of livelihood can breed frustration, increasing the likelihood that men will turn to violence and criminal activity.
Food as a human right
The human rights-based approach to food aid delivery focuses on protecting and promoting people’s rights, rather than simply addressing needs. It views people not as beneficiaries but as rights-holders with entitlements, and implementing organizations and governments as duty-bearers with corresponding obligations. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee embodies this approach in its gender policy, which highlights gender equality and women’s empowerment as key principles in humanitarian work.
In conflict-affected humanitarian settings, opportunities often arise to transform harmful gender relations, redress inequalities and remove structural barriers. Gender equality is seen as necessary for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (zero hunger), where everyone can exercise their right to food. Thus, such opportunities should be taken whenever possible.
However, it must be done carefully and in a conflict-sensitive way. Too strong an emphasis on transforming gender relations can clash with local values and norms (as well as with other humanitarian principles, particularly those of impartiality and neutrality), potentially exacerbating violence against women. For example, in communities where women and girls face high levels of systemic discrimination and barriers to justice, they may face a backlash if they are encouraged to assert their rights. Similarly, when aid is conditioned on the promotion of universal human rights, it may be seen as coercive, creating mistrust or rejection.
Going forward
A conflict-sensitive and context-sensitive, intentional approach to transforming gender relations can mitigate many of the unintended, harmful gendered impacts of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian actors should not only have deep knowledge of local social norms and how they evolve, but they must also set realistic ambitions that balance humanitarian principles and human rights with the risk of unintended consequences.
While local customs are an essential part of regulating social behaviour, they can also be exclusionary and contribute to conflict. Humanitarian awareness-raising efforts should be designed to trigger reflection on exclusionary practices, including the tensions between customs and international human rights law. This can be done more effectively when interventions involve local change agents, including both men and women.
Gender stereotypes whereby women are viewed as household managers or as victims of violence and men as decision makers or as perpetrators of violence need to be questioned and challenged, and can underlie some of the negative gendered consequences of food aid. Instead, food aid delivery needs to be based on a nuanced understanding of the diverse roles, responsibilities and challenges that shape the way women and men experience armed conflict in that particular setting. Gender-transformative programming should be informed by the perspectives of those most marginalized by gender inequality to be truly effective.
Even if women’s empowerment and protection are not the primary objectives of food aid, opportunities and needs in these areas should be systematically analysed and acted on. Humanitarian actors should continually monitor for unintended gendered impacts of their activities. There is also an ongoing need to analyse how food aid can contribute to breaking cycles of violence in the first place.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)