Phito’s contribution to the global FAO call
On December 12, 2024, Phito contributed to a global call from FAO’s Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP), sharing insights from our inclusive approach. The call invited participants to share their experiences, best practices, and perspectives on community engagement to promote inclusive rural transformation and gender equality worldwide.
This initiative aligns with the FAO Policy on Gender Equality (2020–2030), which aims to achieve equality between women and men in sustainable agriculture and rural development, for the elimination of hunger and poverty. The policy outlines four key objectives:
- Equal voice and decision-making power
- Equal rights, access, and control over resources
- Equal rights and access to services, markets, and decent work
- A reduction in the work burden.
Phito’s approach to gender equality
In our contribution, we highlighted how PHITO’s inclusive approach supports these goals. The Phito Food System Partners—representing and working with farmers, farmer associations, cooperatives, community groups, and other local stakeholder networks—are the key actors in this process.
Phito’s primary goal is to support small and medium-sized farmers by developing an accessible, affordable app that translates geo-data into practical, actionable farming advice. During the project’s first phase, we conducted a user needs assessment to gather insights into what farmers truly need to make agriculture both sustainable and profitable.
A key element of this process, and an example of good practice, was the disaggregated collection of data from women and men farmers, ensuring gender-specific insights that can inform more inclusive decision-making – supporting gender equality and farming innovation.
In the countries involved in the project, men make up the majority of farmers, with estimates ranging from 70% to 90%. This imbalance presents a challenge in ensuring that women farmers are actively involved and their voices heard. To address this, the Phito Food System Partners made persistent efforts to specifically reach women within their networks and communities through targeted outreach campaigns, letters, and phone calls.
These efforts resulted in an average response rate of 20% from women farmers in the user needs assessment. Beyond increasing participation, Phito also prioritizes understanding women farmers’ needs to provide better local support and ensure that digital solutions are tailored to their specific requirements.
Reaching Women Farmers
To encourage women’s participation, each Food System Partner tailors its approach to the needs and dynamics of their network. For instance, our Italian Food System Partner Consorzio LEB shared, “We organized a public event on July 23rd in collaboration with Coldiretti Donne Impresa—a network of women entrepreneurs within [the agricultural organisation] Coldiretti—and held an ‘on-the-road’ brainstorming session as part of the user needs assessment.”
Partners have found that ongoing, personalized communication is essential to increase women’s engagement. This includes explaining the project’s goals, extending personal invitations to meetings, and organizing interactive events such as test-and-taste sessions, open farm days, and activities promoted through local communication channels.
The next steps in the Phito app development include organizing community engagement activities and creating a gender-responsive questionnaire to gather more inclusive insights.
Scaling Up – Impact of FAO’s call
In response to the contributions, FAO’s Gender Equality Division shared the following message on their website:
“Dear Participants, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to the call for submissions on Community Engagement for Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality. We are thrilled to share that we received over 156 contributions from around the world, representing a diverse array of organizations, sectors, and disciplines dedicated to improving rural livelihoods. […] All contributions received will be showcased in a proceedings report, which will be made available on the FAO website.” We are proud to see Phito’s contribution included in this global effort to promote gender equality in rural development. We will share the proceedings report here, once it is online.
Featured image credit: ÖMKI
