Advancing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Food, Land, and Water Systems in the MENA Region: Updated Evidence Review

Post-2022 evidence demonstrates important conceptual and empirical advances—particularly in documenting women’s agency and testing transformative methodologies—but highlights persistent deficits in legal recognition, asset rights, institutional accountability, and equitable access to land, water and finance. These areas remain the core priorities if the MENA region is to translate gender research into sustained social and technical transformation and climate-resilient livelihoods. This updated evidence review synthesizes post-2022 research on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) across food, land, water, and fisheries systems in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Building on Najjar and Baruah’s (2022) as baseline, it integrates new academic and grey literature to assess how feminist political ecology (FPE) and gender-transformative approaches (GTA) are reshaping development and climate agendas. The review identifies measurable advances in five domains: recognition of women as resource managers and climate actors; strengthened intra-household decision-making and adaptive capacity; emergence of feminist leadership through cooperatives; proliferation of norm-change and youth engagement initiatives; and growing application of intersectional and FPE methodologies. Despite this progress, structural and institutional barriers persist. Legal and social recognition of women as farmers remains limited, inheritance and land rights reforms lag, and gender-responsive irrigation and climate services remain underdeveloped. Labour informality, care burdens, and weak institutional accountability continue to constrain women’s equitable participation and benefit-sharing. New policy commitments—such as Morocco’s gender-responsive economic modelling and Jordan’s climate adaptation frameworks—mark a shift toward integrating gender in green and digital transitions, but implementation remains uneven and under-financed. Overall, the review finds that MENA’s GESI landscape is evolving from gender mainstreaming to transformative, relational, and multi-level approaches linking equality with climate resilience and inclusive growth. To consolidate these gains, the upcoming regional agenda must move from rapidly recognition to redistribution—embedding gender justice within law, policy, finance, and institutional practice to achieve lasting social transformation and climate-resilient livelihoods.