Rural women’s livelihoods and food security in Africa

Since the early 1980s, research and policy interest in rural women’s livelihoods and food security in Africa has risen and waned in tandem with significant developments in African economies and shifts in economic policy responses to recurring crises. This chapter draws on an important body of work on rural women in agrarian and development studies that has sought to incorporate a gender perspective to rural and agrarian studies. It examines how economic liberalization has reshaped the conditions of making a living in rural Africa since the 1980s, and its implications for rural women’s livelihoods. The chapter argues that economic liberalization has intensified and created new forms of livelihood diversification strategies in rural areas that are gendered in practice and their outcomes. There are several nonagricultural activities dominated by rural women. These include harvests from common property resources, agro-processing, trading in agricultural and nonagricultural activities, and secular migration. Women’s livelihood portfolios can include several of these with or without farming.