Summary
This guidebook reviews the evidence of the contributions of five voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) (Fairtrade International, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ and Common Code for the Coffee Community) to gender equality and women's empowerment in agriculture; explains how VSSs can be used as a tool to meet related components of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and provides recommendations for development organizations working toward gender equality and women's empowerment in agriculture. Whilst the VSSs do make some important strides in addressing gender equality in their certification criteria, it is shown that they fall short of empowering women in some key areas, such as provision of childcare and addressing social norms that prevent women participating in the commercialization process and household decision-making. The author provides recommendations of how development organisations can leveraging VSS potential to improve gender equality and women's empowerment in agriculture, for example, using gender transformative approaches to encourage women's decision making within households, providing child care during production- and certification- related trainings, and working with women and men to understand the gender division of labour.