Accelerating progress towardsthe economic empowerment ofrural women

CONTEXT

Women are central to the development of rural areas andto national economies: they account for a significantproportion of the agricultural labour force, play a key rolein food production, especially in subsistence farming andperform most of the unpaid care work in rural areas.However, rural women and girls have restricted access toproductive resources, such as land, agricultural inputs,finance and credit, extension services and technology,which in turn limits the efficiency of the agricultural sector.They face more difficulty than men in gaining access topublic services, social protection, decent employmentopportunities and local and national markets andinstitutions, due to cultural norms and security issues.Unpaid care work further hampers rural women’s ability totake advantage of on and off farm employment andmarket opportunities in the agricultural sector. Within thiscontext, UN Women, FAO, IFAD and WFP have agreed tospearhead a more comprehensive UN system response insupport of rural women’s economic empowermentthrough joint actions.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

This 5-year joint programme is aimed at economicallyempowering rural women. It will be implemented inEthiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger andRwanda. Together, this coalition between UN Women,FAO, IFAD and WFP is expected to generate synergies thatcapitalize on each agency’s mandate, comparativeadvantage and institutional strength to generate morelasting and wider scale improvements in the livelihoodsand rights of rural women, including young women.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The programme’s goal is to secure rural women’slivelihoods and rights in the context of sustainabledevelopment and the post MDGs +15. The programme isarticulated around four outcomes:

Outcome 1 on rural women’s improved food andnutrition security aims at increasing the productivepotential of women smallholder farmers through theiraccess to and control over productive resources andservices critical to food security and nutrition. It alsoaddresses their social protection, and enhanced controland management of local food security reserves. Indicativeactivities include:

Work at community level to foster changes ofgender-based roles, ensuring equitable access toand control over productive resources to reach amore adequate share of benefits and workloadbetween men and women.

Promotion of extension support, food banks,consumer cooperatives and nutrition awarenessinitiatives.

Strengthening of productive capacities throughimprovement of food processing, using innovativeproductivity enhancing culturally and ecologicallyacceptable technologies.

Promotion of access to critical integrated services,such as personal identification documents, landregistration, extension advice, marketing services,medical checkups and legal advice.

Supporting governments to relieve the burden ofwomen’s work.

Outcome 2 on rural women’s increased income to sustaintheir livelihoods focuses on creating, supporting anddeveloping rural women-led enterprises, supportingwomen’s role along value chains, enhancing their incomeopportunities and promoting their linkages to high valuemarkets. It will support women-led associations and smallscale businesses in overcoming their supply sideconstraints so that they can take full advantage ofopportunities offered by the market. The indicativeactivities include:

Strengthening entrepreneurship and supportingrural women’s businesses through capacitybuilding and training, including rural serviceprovision and non-traditional roles.

Supporting women-led associations and smallscale businesses to supply home grown schoolmeals in low-income and food-insecure countriesand areas.

Strengthening provision of and linkages to valueaddition, marketing and market information,using ICT sustainable and environmentally soundtools and technologies.

Advocacy with governments and financialinstitutions for rural women’s increased access tofinancial services and products such as savings,credit, insurance, domestic payment services andremittances. This includes promotion of betterlinkages between informal and formal financialservices.

Promoting access of rural women to decent work,while addressing issues related to childcare,occupational safety and health, minimum wagesand child labour prevention.

Supporting rural women’s groups to accessopportunities for paid ecological services, withinthe framework of climate change adaptation andmitigation.

Outcome 3 on rural women’s enhanced leadership andparticipation in rural institutions and in shaping laws,policies and programmes promotes their agency in ruralproducer organizations, cooperatives and unions and inlocal governance. Actions under this outcome area willalso strengthen rural women’s voice and influence in keypolicy processes. Indicative activities involve:

Strengthening rural women’s, youth self-confidence and capacity to take on leadershiproles in local governance: land committees,community development initiatives and producerorganizations.

Developing the capacities of rural women toorganise into and participate in cooperatives,service provider and producer organizationsand/or worker unions.

Assisting informal rural women’s groups toaffiliate with formal organizations.

Supporting producer organizations, cooperativesand unions to make their corporate governancemore transparent, effective, accountable, genderequitable and age inclusive.

Raising awareness on rural women’s rightsthrough legal literacy, community listening clubsand community radios.

Fostering a supportive and enabling environment,including by involving/sensitizing male advocatesat all levels to champion and support change.

Strengthening rural women’s advocacy platformsso that they can engage in regional processes andadvocate with their own governments to holdthem accountable at national and local levels.

Supporting regional level dialogues among ruralproducer organizations, both mixed and womenand youth only.

Outcome 4 on more gender responsive policyenvironment for the economic empowerment of ruralwomen catalyzes legislative and policy reforms for theeffective enforcement of rural women’s land rights andtheir access to decent wage employment, socialprotection, and infrastructure. It involves advocating withgovernments, parliaments and other relevant stakeholdersto deliver greater development outcomes to rural women,including in the framework of Rio +20 and Post MDG+2015. Indicative activities include:

Provision of policy assistance to countries: tomainstream gender equality into their food,agriculture, nutrition and rural development

policies and legal frameworks; improve nationalgovernance for food and nutrition security andfacilitate the establishment and development ofgender equitable producer organizations.

Advocacy and capacity strengthening for theimplementation of policies advancing women’sland rights, including granting of titles to land,joint titling, land distribution programmes andother changes in land law.

Strengthening of national institutions and donorcoordination mechanisms to deliver evidence-based gender responsive rural development andagricultural programmes, policies andinvestments.

Enhancing agricultural and rural developmentpolicies to advance rural women’s rights withinthe decent work agenda, through policy support,advocacy and implementation.

Advocating with governments for ruralinfrastructure development and investments inenvironmentally sustainable technologies andenterprises.

Piloting a women’s empowerment in agricultureindex and a national scorecard for rural genderequality.

Organising a global conference on rural womenfarmers in 2014, within the context of theinternational year of family farmers.

STRATEGY

The strategic framework of the programme is based on thefollowing:

Status - Including improved nutrition, higher productivityand income, enhanced skills for entrepreneurship andorganizational development of rural women’s groups andcooperatives.

Rights - Addressing the areas of inequalities in social,economic, cultural and political positioning of rural womenwhich prevent them from being part of transformativechange in agricultural development and accessingproductive resources and assets such as land, services,education and skills, infrastructure and social protection.

Resources - Looking at access to financing, high valuemarkets, and decent wage employment, and control overthe financial returns of their activities.

Agency - Focusing on rural women’s participation andleadership in key policy spaces and processes so that theirneeds and priorities are adequately addressed in ruraldevelopment policies and financing.

Total programme cost: US$ 35,000,000