Poverty eradication, food security, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) have been in the development discourse for a while now. However, discussions have been fragmented, and little effort has been made to connect this triad of issues. Moreover, discourses on addressing poverty and food security have also been mainly gender-blind, largely ignoring the central role women play in addressing the above issues.
An understanding of the links between these issues, while keeping human rights as its foundation, can lead to the appropriate interventions on all fronts of human development — social, economic, environmental sustainability, and peace and security.
There are multiple pathways showing the linkages between the three concepts, and the limited space in this bulletin may not allow for a full exploration on the connections. However, the links can best be understood if we put people, especially women and other marginalised groups, at the centre of the development discourse. A gender-based and rights-based analyses show the manifold ways in which these issues intersect, resulting in poor health and wellbeing.
