A number of major United Nations food and agriculture agencies have said that improving gender equality is integral to achieving global food security. The UN organisations have launched a joint programme to empower poor rural women through economic integration and food security initiatives.

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The agencies’ five-year programme, Accelerating Progress Toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women, is being championed by UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP). The programme will initially be introduced in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger and Rwanda before being expanded.

On Thursday (27th September) Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director commented on the initiative, "When women are empowered and can claim their rights and access to land, leadership, opportunities and choices, economies grow, food security is enhanced and prospects are improved for current and future generations.”

Women are central to the development of rural areas and to national economies. They make up 43 per cent of the agricultural work force worldwide; and as much as 70 per cent in some countries, and often work longer hours than men. Rural women are also the caregivers who look after children, the elderly, and the sick. In addition, many rural women are small business entrepreneurs and investors who dedicate most of their earnings to the well-being of their families and societies.

However, in spite of this, only limited progress has been made in redressing gender inequalities across the world. Women typically face more obstacles than men in gaining access to public services, social protection, decent employment opportunities, and markets and other institutions.

FAO said that, if women had the same access to resources as men, farm yields could increase, novel techniques rolled out and improvements in agriculture and society realised. The agency’s work has shown that where women are empowered - economically and socially - they become leaders and agents of change for economic growth, social progress and sustainable development.

The four goals of the new programme are:

• improving food and nutrition security;
• increasing incomes;
• enhancing leadership and participation in rural institutions, and;
• creating a more responsive policy environment at national and international levels.

The agencies will contribute differently to the programme depending on their individual mandates. The FAO’s role in the new initiative will be to increase the empowerment of rural women in work towards “achieving food security for all, raising levels of nutrition, bettering the lives of rural populations, and improving agricultural productivity.” The Rome-based agency said last week that it has already worked with a number of national governments to redress the balance in agricultural policies.

Some existing UN-backed projects which aim to help empower women in particular include the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative, which helps smallholder farmers become competitive players in the marketplace by producing food for sale and use in related programmes. Projects such as cereal banks and village granaries help whole communities manage their resources and get through times when food is scarce.

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