Report of the Expert Group Meeting: Enabling Rural Women's Economic Empowerment: Institutions, Opportunities and Participation

"While rural women's participation in public life, their opportunities for employment, access to and control over productive resources, and access to health facilities have improved, rural women's needs, knowledge, experience and contributions are still not sufficiently taken into consideration in research, data collection, policy development and implementation, resource allocation and programmes in all areas of sustainable development."

In that context, this paper shares the findings of an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on "Enabling rural women's economic empowerment: institutions, opportunities and participation", held September 20-23 2011 in Accra, Ghana. The EGM gathered in order to assist the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as part of focus, during the 56th session in 2012, on the theme of "the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges". EGM was convened by United Nations (UN) Women in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP). The EGM explored a wide range of strategies that can enhance the economic empowerment of rural women, with an emphasis on the following areas:

• Rural women's strengthened role in agriculture;
• Rural women's access to productive resources, technology markets, and financing;
• Decent and productive employment and income-generating opportunities for rural women;
• Infrastructure and service delivery that benefit rural women;
• Rural women's role in natural resource management and climate change adaptation; and
• Effective institutions and enabling policy environment that promotes gender-responsive rural development.

An excerpt from the report follows:
"The participants of the Expert Group Meeting recognize:

• that rural women's and men's lives, their livelihoods, and their roles and responsibilities are multi-dimensional and dynamic. They are impacted by policies, institutional mechanisms and rules, as well as by the gender relations institutionalized in households, communities, and beyond. This means that policies and programmes must be informed by participatory process involving rural women and men and take into account the diversity and complexity of factors that underpin the well-being and empowerment of women, men, girls and boys;
• rural women as agents of change who contribute to local and national economies, agriculture, rural development, household livelihoods, food and nutrition security and social well-being...;
• women as leaders, decision-makers, producers, workers, entrepreneurs, and service providers in national and local policies, alongside men;
• the diversity of rural women by age; religion; ethnicity; their social, economic, political and ecological status, and other factors...
• the full enjoyment of indigenous women and men, as a collective or as individuals, to land, territories and productive resources based on the UN [United Nations] Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
• that Governments have the responsibility to promote, protect, and fulfill the human rights of rural women and men to ensure their economic, social and cultural wellbeing;
• that violence against women persists in all countries and is a major obstacle to rural women's empowerment and enjoyment of their rights;
• the multifaceted characteristics of rural economies creating both opportunities and challenges for rural women and men in the farm and off-farm sectors;
• the many inequalities and challenges faced by different groups of rural women and men in accessing economic and social opportunities and services...;
• that macro-economic policies have not given adequate attention to the empowerment of rural women and that trade, employment and fiscal policy decisions have tended to contribute to the economic marginalization of rural women.

Therefore, new rural development frameworks...should ensure the compliance and accountability of state and non-state actors operating at macro, meso and micro levels to mitigate these risks and accelerate access to opportunities and respond to the rights, aspirations and needs of rural women and men.

National and international governance systems need to promote inclusive economic growth strategies that generate long-term societal benefits, including improved well-being of rural women, and reduced inequality and poverty in rural areas as well as reduced inequality between rural and urban areas.

Effective decentralization can be an important strategy for rural women's economic empowerment, and can be conducive to a fuller engagement of rural women in public affairs, provided it is accompanied by attitudinal change, capacity development, and inclusive and participatory processes for the formulation and implementation of policies, strategies, programs and projects. [For example, one specific recommendation is to: "Support the development and implementation of gender-sensitive land and property laws, both statutory and customary, by providing: i) capacity development among decentralized officials; ii) dialogue with, and awareness building among the target population in their own languages using a variety of media, and iii) legal aid and appeal mechanisms in relation to land and property issues (both in statutory and customary law)."]

The green economy, including environmentally sustainable agriculture, can provide policy instruments to achieve sustainable development and help mitigate climate change for current and future generations. Given rural women's key contributions to agriculture, rural livelihoods and sustainable development, they need to play an important role in defining, structuring and implementing the green economy..."