(AGENPARL) – Thu 17 July 2025 [cid:fa7760b9-107a-4f15-b182-164a23a1a644]
The correlation between beans and empowerment
Gathering statistics for better-informed women’s empowerment and nutrition policies
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©FAO/ Gavin Gosbert and Jerry Mushala
A man sits down with the head of a household, often another man, in the Fujoni district of Zanzibar, an island region of Tanzania. Working his way through a detailed questionnaire, he asks an array of questions about agriculture and the family farm: what kind of crops they grow, whether they practice crop rotation and how much produce they sell on the local market.
Once they have completed this section, the male farmer is politely asked to leave the room, affording privacy for a second interview with an adult woman of the household.
Whenever possible, the person holding this conversation will be a female enumerator because she’ll be asking about sensitive matters such as the woman’s opinion on unwelcome male advances, women’s freedom in starting a family or the influence she has on spending decisions.
They will also go over more mundane topics such as the range of foods she’s eaten over the last day, but even this is tied to her role in the household and can be influenced by her general level of empowerment.
All this is in a day’s work for the enumerators. The overarching aim of these surveys is to collect a wide range of individual and agricultural statistics, supporting policy makers in making more informed decisions that help agriculture better meet their people’s nutritional and livelihood needs.
It’s part of the wide-ranging 50×2030 Initiative, in which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) partners with the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and national governments, to send statisticians to farmlands across Africa and Asia to learn about how food security plays out at individual level and how women’s diets are tied to empowerment.
In Tanzania, along with Sierra Leone and Liberia, National Statistical Offices are launching a new questionnaire on Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition (WEN), jointly produced by FAO on the nutrition side and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on the empowerment one.
The nutrition questions in the survey present women with a list of ten different food groups and asks them which types of food they have eaten in the past day. This parameter is important because eating a variety of foods supports good health and overall wellbeing.
Of course, the pairing of empowerment and nutrition is not a coincidence. Preliminary data show that there’s a very clear correlation between food groups women consumed in the last day to empowerment levels.
For example, according to latest data gathered, foods like grains, white roots and tubers, are generally available to even Africa’s least empowered women. Instead, pulses, meats and eggs are more frequently consumed by women with a higher level of empowerment. Not that empowerment guarantees a healthier diet. There’s clear evidence that those most empowered are also more likely to consume highly processed foods, sugary drinks and sweets.
Importance of sex-disaggregated data
As to why a module homing in on individual women’s everyday lives and perspectives, across Africa and beyond is needed, “governments are striving to empower women and to better understand the challenges they face, both within their households and in society,” says Nour Masoud, Statistics Manager in the Office of the Chief Government Statistician in Tanzania.
As FAO Statistician Chiara Brunelli sees it: “It is not just about what’s morally right, but it is also a critical driver of economic growth, social stability and innovation because when women have access to education, healthcare and equal opportunities, societies thrive.”
The importance of the task comes across loud and clear from FAO’s 2024 report on the Status of Women in Agrifood Systems. Its message is that on the one hand gender equality and greater empowerment are central to bring about sustainable, productive and resilient agrifood systems. Conversely, the transformation of those systems also contributes to gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Nutrition is a major concern for many women taking part in the survey in Zanzibar. This is certainly true of Mtumwa Faki Omari, a homemaker who recently gave birth to her sixth child. She explains, “Babies grow up healthy and strong when they are breastfed properly. But it’s just as important for breastfeeding mothers to eat balanced, nutritious meals so they can stay healthy and support their babies’ growth.”
An older woman farmer, Asha Abdallah, says, “When my grandchildren visit, I make sure they receive nutritious meals. In the morning, I usually prepare them hot porridge made from beans, millet and other healthy ingredients.”
Results from the WEN module are still being analysed. But what’s already clear is that having sex-disaggregated data can strongly contribute to shape policies that truly reflect women’s realities, needs and potential.
“It ensures that the needs of women are not overlooked in agricultural and nutrition programmes,” says Masoud.
That’s why FAO aims to expand the module to more countries, working closely with governments to ensure that women like Mtumwa and Asha are not just surveyed but heard, understood and supported.
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