Fsnau-Post-Gu-2012-Technical-Report

4.3.9. ThE GENDER pERSpECTIvE OF FOOD SECURITY IN SOMALIA
Gender analysis approach
Post-Gu gender analysis of food security vulnerability focus
is based on locations where FSNAU household surveys were
conducted. These included eight northern and central IDP
settlements located in or near urban areas, the northern
urban areas and Mogadishu (IDP and urban). As security
issues prevented rural household surveys, rural gender
insights emerge from FSNAU focus group discussions and
key informant interviews.
Available urban and IDP data narrowed insightful gender
analysis to a comparison of households headed by men
and women. Key variables were: source of income, asset
ownership, food consumption, housing, education and
coping strategies. Surveys also captured a glimpse of the
different ways women and men within these households
contribute to feeding and supporting their families.
Gender insights into rural food security looked into male
and female ownership of livestock assets, income sources
and the different degree of control men and women have in
spending their income.
Post-Gu gender insights from the above sources are
supplemented with contextual findings in FSNAU baseline
reports and workshops 1 .
Overview
Gu analysis indicates that female-headed households
are more often, but not always, more food insecure than
households headed by men. Gu findings show women,
especially IDP women, have fewer formal sector work
opportunities than men and that men do most of the higherpaid
casual work. FSNAU baseline studies 2 document gender
gaps in pay for informal work: men’s construction work, for
example, pays much better than women’s work mudding
houses, cleaning or small-scale trading. This pattern of
women earning less for the hours they invest is reflected in
Mogadishu and other IDP settlements surveyed. Many of
these women forage or do petty trade to buy food. Lesser
numbers do casual work. FSNAU baseline studies and key
informant discussions by the FSNAU gender team combine
to suggest the exhausting long hours spent in earning
marginal income in the informal sector deplete women’s
energy and reduce the time left to invest in preparing food,
providing safe water and accessing essential health care.
Rural IDPs driven by conflict or crisis to urban areas rarely
come with livestock. There is usually no choice for men or
women but to pursue any possible avenue to put food on
the table.
1 In conjunction with the post-Gu 2012 All Team Analysis Workshop -
Hargeiza, three workshops with FSNAU government focal points and
fieldstaff helped validate the findings from rural focus groups and
baseline documents.
2 Example: Livelihood Baseline Analysis – Bay and Bakool (FSNAU 2009)
Gu analysis clearly demonstrates that the key opening for
IDP women (regardless of the IDP settlement) is petty trade.
For men, opportunities focus on casual work.
The fall-back for both is charity: gifts from relatives, local
charity and humanitarian relief. Longer-term urban poor, both
men and women, have much greater access to remittances.
There are indications that humanitarian aid flowing with
priority to IDP women is somewhat balancing the tradition
of Somali gifting to men as household heads. Households
headed by widows and those dependent on only women
earners (unemployed, disabled or dysfunctional men) were
identified as priorities for zakat and humanitarian aid.
IDP men and women both struggle to earn a survival income.
The buoyant construction sector in Hargeiza, Mogadishu and
other urban centers is currently providing day work primarily
for men although women are also entering the vibrant
construction sector. FSNAU has documented that women can
constitute about 20 percent of the unskilled labour in urban
Baidoa’s construction sector 3 . Casual work is critical for the
poor in both IDP and urban settlements.
The social safety net is very fragile for IDP households
regardless of the sex of household heads. High dependency
on gifts from relatives, local better-off families and
humanitarian assistance back-stops whatever is earned
in casual work, mainly by men, and petty trade, mainly by
women. Should insecurity or economic shock constrict either
casual work or petty trade, the food security of those who
depend, respectively, on the earnings of IDP men or women
will be seriously undermined.
Northern and Mogadishu surveys suggest it is exceptional if
an IDP male, and much more so if an IDP female, is able to
migrate from rural Somalia when literacy is minimal and, in
the short term, gain formal sector employment.
In rural non-crisis times, men and women are dynamic
partners in both livestock and crop production. When their
livestock or crops are destroyed by conflict or natural disaster,
more men and women resort to natural resource harvesting.
(See gender profile - box) In poor rural families, survival is
a partnership of the energy, skills and income-generation of
both women and men.
The good Gu rains have eased abnormal migration which,
in turn, has reduced the prolonged family splitting and
related protection risks triggered by last year’s famine. As
the situation stabilizes more families are being reunited but
stressful family separation remains a reality for many.
3 Livelihood Baseline Analysis – Baidoa Urban (FSNAU 2009).
FSNAU Technical Series Report No. VI 48
Issued October 18, 2012
Regional Gender Analysis
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