Empowering Rural Women for Inclusive Development

Empowering Rural Women for Inclusive Development

2013-10-30 

At the 1997 World Conference on Women in Beijing, international NGOs launched the commemoration of Rural Women’s Day, followed by a global campaign for education and empowerment of rural women.

The first International Day of Rural Women was observed worldwide on 15 October 2008 in response to the UN General Assembly resolution that recognized “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

Today over a hundred countries recognize the crucial role of women in rural economies of both developed and developing societies. In most parts of the developing world women participate in seed preservation, crop production, land cultivation, livestock care, storing and providing food, water and fuel for their families. Women engage in marketing and other off-farm activities to diversify their families’ livelihoods. In addition, they carry out vital functions of child and elderly care, as well as tending the sick and disabled. Rural women are key stakeholders in food security, sustainable natural resources, climate justice and overall socio-economic stability of their communities.

Despite their valuable contribution to their communities’ economic life, having little or no status in society, they are often unable to secure land ownership and property rights, and lack the power to access vital support and services such as credit, market inputs and extension services, training or education. Rural women bear the brunt of so-called development projects that evict farmers from their land, or fisher folk from their sources of livelihood; rural women have almost no means of recovering or gaining compensation in the event of evacuations caused by calamities or violence in conflict situations.

International Rural Women’s Day, which falls on October 15, is commemorated ahead of World Food Day (October 16) to emphasize the vital relationship between women and food security. Rural women comprise more than a quarter of the total world population. Five hundred million of them live below the poverty line in most countries. Women produce 60-80% of basic foodstuffs in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean; perform over 50% of the labor involved in intensive rice cultivation in Asia, and 30% of the agricultural work in industrialized countries. Yet they own less than one percent of the world’s wealth and have lesser chances of acquiring them.

World Rural Women’s Day aims to change the situation of rural women by promoting their rights, giving value and credit to their work and strengthening their capacities towards sustainability and development for their societies. This year’s commemoration was highlighted by UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka with a call to“enforce and protect the rights of rural women”, adding that “When women have access to land, there are improvements in household welfare, agricultural productivity and gender equality. And greater progress is made against poverty, gender-based violence and HIV/ AIDS. It makes everybody better off.”

 Text and photo by: Niza Concepcion

Diakonia Asia blog http://asia.diakonia.se