In rural areas of the developing world, women
are the backbone of their communities. They are farmers, smallholders and farm
labourers; they are the primary caregivers of the young, the elderly, the ill and
the disabled. They are often entrepreneurial cash-earners supporting their
families and creating opportunities for others. Despite these multiple
responsibilities, women lack access to sufficient resources and services to
increase their productivity and incomes, while easing their burden of household
duties. That is why the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has made gender issues a central focus.
In many developing countries women typically
work 12 more hours per week than men. However, they still have far less access
to land, water, education, training, financial services and strong
organizations. Particularly scarce are health and health-education
services for women. The risk of a woman in a developing
country dying from a pregnancy-related cause is about 36 times higher than in a
developed country. Not only women, but everyone is held back by these resource
constraints.
Women are dynamic organizers and can be very
effective at promoting and sustaining local self-help initiatives and
development projects. In drought- and famine-prone Niger, for example, a new type of food
bank lending food to farmers to help them get through the ‘hungry season’
preceding the harvest is improving resilience and food
security. Managed exclusively by women, these food banks help create new,
dynamic women’s organizations in villages. The project is helping these
organizations develop other activities related to health, child
nutrition, HIV and other challenges.
In microfinance programmes, we have seen that
women are prudent savers, using income to benefit the entire household – and
their communities. Farm productivity increases when women have access to
agricultural inputs and relevant knowledge. When girls have access to primary and secondary education, malnutrition and mortality among
both boys and girls are reduced. Thus, closing the gender gap in rural
development is important for equity, efficiency, food security and sustainable
trade.
A
three-pronged approach
Women can be powerful change agents. Empowering
poor rural women involves three critical and interrelated dimensions: expanding
access to assets such as capital, land, knowledge and technologies;
strengthening decision-making and their representation in community affairs;
and improving women’s well-being and lessening their workloads.
IFAD-supported programmes have experimented
with various devices and practices to ease women’s workloads and improve family
and community well-being. For example, improved stoves and innovative rainwater
harvesting devices decrease time spent collecting fuelwood and water;
conservation agriculture can reduce time-consuming activities like weeding; and
cassava graters, oil-seed presses and other food-processing equipment can
deliver more income with less effort.
Once time is freed up women’s creative energies
can be put to work in new and emerging markets, such as fair trade and organic
value chains. In the coffee industry, women-only coffee cooperatives are
supplying large coffee retailers eager to meet consumer interest in social responsibility. In Rwanda, an IFAD-backed project has helped women get
involved in the coffee trade: after extensive training, women now occupy from
30%-60% of committee seats in the project-supported cooperatives. Coffee from
women-run cooperatives brings US$ 4 to US$ 5 per kg compared to US$ 3.50 for
coffee from other cooperatives.
Donors, policymakers, development practitioners
and agri-businesses must shift their thinking about women, food security,
agriculture and the global marketplace. Women should be recognized as a
powerful force for social and economic development, not just of rural
communities but for national development overall.
Women and rural
development
www.ifad.org/pub/factsheet/women/women_e.pdf
Lightening the
load
www.ifad.org/gender/pub/load.pdf
Gender and
rural microfinance –
reaching and empowering women
www.ifad.org/gender/pub/gender_finance.pdf
Gender in
agriculture sourcebook
www.ifad.org/gender/pub/sourcebook/gal.pdf
Polishing the
stone
www.ifad.org/pub/gender/polishing/polishing.pdf