Early on, The Hunger Project recognized that women are the key to ending hunger. Women bear almost all responsibility for meeting basic needs of the family, yet are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to fulfill this responsibility.

In 1997, a UNICEF study triggered the recognition that gender was not only a major factor in hunger — it was a primary root cause. The UNICEF paper demonstrated that the only reason child malnutrition rates in South Asia were twice as high as those in sub-Saharan Africa is that women in South Asia were much more subjugated. Far stronger interventions for gender equality were needed.

• The Hunger Project rewrote its Vision, Commitment and Action Workshops to emphasize the importance of empowering women.
• Special women’s animator trainings were created to fit the schedules and needs of women.
• Every African epicenter committee is required to have equal representation of women.
• The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative has provided 70,000 loans, totaling US$4 million, where previously women had no access to credit. More than 400,000 people have taken the HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Workshop, in which they not only learn the facts of AIDS, but also confront and transform the gender-based behaviors that fuel the pandemic.
• In India, our Women’s Leadership Workshop has empowered 50,000 women elected to local councils to be effective change agents for ending hunger — where before many didn’t even bother to attend council meetings. They are forming district- and state-wide federations to ensure that their voices are heard at top levels of government.

Despite increased rhetoric of gender inequality, most traditional aid resources continue to go to men, essentially widening the gender gap rather than narrowing it.

Elected women representatives in Assam, India, start the five-hour trip to carry the demands of their 500-member federation to the head of the state government on the night before the state assembly session.