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Rural communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America are where the majority of hungry people are and the inequality that exists between women and men in these communities is holding back progress. These women have a very tough time, so much is expected of them.

The majority of small-holder farmers in Africa are women and, in urban areas, you're primarily looking at women-led households. So we can't solve hunger if we don't have gender-sensitive programming that addresses access to opportunities for women, whether it's through education or tools for cooking, like solar-powered stoves.

We recognize that the majority of people who are food-insecure or hungry in the world live in rural areas. And most of them are small holder subsistence farmers.

In the developing world, it's about time that women are on the agenda. For instance, 80 percent of small-subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are women, and yet all the programs in the past were predominantly focused on men.

Women with minimal access to resources and no access to child care have limited choices that too often mean low-wage and part-time labor. In rural communities in the developing world, when women farmers have unequal access to fertilizers or training, their farm productivity lags behind men.

In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there.

In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there. We have 300 million poor in India.

In India there are more poor people in three states... than there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Women's vulnerability around money is hardly exclusive to Africa. Throughout the world, women struggle with financial power. In the West, women's financial literacy is notably lower than men's. That lack of knowledge means that many women slide into poverty when they become widows.