Special Interest: Agriculture
American biologist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug is often called “The Father of the Green Revolution” for his groundbreaking discoveries in high-yield agriculture.
He’s even been called “The Man Who Saved A Billion Lives,” which is no exaggeration.
Thanks in part to his dedication and expertise, the world’s grain output grew by more than 150 percent from 1950 to 1992. Before Borlaug, who died in 2009, staple crops like wheat grew sparsely, often perished to disease and required harvesting by hand in countries like Pakistan, India and Mexico.
Borlaug once said the biggest obstacle to his work was the “constant pessimism and scare-mongering” of skeptics who argued that mass starvation was inevitable; that hundreds of millions would die in Africa and Asia and there was nothing humanity could do about it.
As Borlaug knew, the world can solve hunger if we have the right tools, technology and support. Hunger isn’t about too many mouths to feed and too little food. It’s about equality and access to resources. It’s also about our collective future.
Because, as Borlaug once said, “We can’t build world peace on empty stomachs and human misery.”
ROME- Economic empowerment of rural women as farmers, entrepreneurs and leaders contributes towards alleviating poverty, increasing food security and achieving gender equality. These findings, based on an evaluation of a six-year multi-agency global initiative implemented in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger and Rwanda, were shared at a high-level event in Rome earlier this week.
The program, ‘Accelerating Progress towards Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment,’ implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls (UN Women) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) together with national governments and supported by the governments of Sweden and Norway was evaluated at the end of its first phase of implementation and findings shared.
“Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are pre-conditions for the eradication of poverty and hunger and are essential to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals. By bringing four UN agencies and key partners together, the Joint Programme has achieved long-lasting change for rural women, their families and their communities,” said the U.N. World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Amir Abdulla. “By providing access to innovative tools and addressing barriers that hold women back, the project has shown that empowering rural women means empowering communities and unleashing the potential of future generations.”
The second phase of the program that aims to build on the successes of the first phase, bringing more rural women into the program and contributing to global learning and policy dialogues on the rights of rural women, will commence in January 2022.
Addressing stakeholders at the event, Eva Lövgren, Deputy Director for International Organisations and Policy Support, SIDA said, “Today’s event is another brilliant example of how learning can be shared. It is clear that the Joint Programme has built a foundation on which proven methods for strengthening women’s economic empowerment can be replicated and scaled. Now the program stands ready to build on what works.”
Building resilience, decreasing vulnerabilities and promoting economic empowerment
The findings revealed that women participating in the program benefited greatly from enhanced agricultural practices through access to productive assets, labor-saving technologies, market linkages and leadership training, which meant that they were able to increase their agricultural productivity, obtain more sustainable income and ensure a better diet for their families.
A positive shift in social norms was also observed, which meant that women played a greater role in household and community-level decision-making. For example, men in Nepal and Niger reported growing support to improve the status of women in villages as well as to contribute to household chores.
Women participating in the program were more likely to be elected to local councils and engage in local governance as a result of improved self-confidence through leadership, technical and business-related training. For example, over 3,000 women in both Ethiopia and Liberia became members of land committees and were involved in decision-making processes.
The economic impacts of COVID-19 and climate change were also largely mitigated for women participating in the program. Rural women and communities applied climate-smart agricultural practices supported by the program. During COVID-19, women were able to maintain their income security through the increased availability of cash transfers or access to funds and savings.
“The program has increased people’s resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, including in those countries that suffered double crises as a result of natural disasters. Given the current context with the pandemic, the increasing devastating consequences of climate change and vulnerabilities to natural disaster, we must apply a resilience lens across all our interventions and ensure that rural women and men have the capacities, assets and resources, as well as access to the services they need to withstand shocks. The potential to build resilience will be an integral part of the program’s design in the second phase,” said FAO’s Senior Gender Officer, Susan Kaaria.
“The joint program’s integrated approach allowed rural women to cope with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through strengthened social networks, savings groups, and solidarity that facilitated access to food reserves and cash savings to withstand household income and food insecurity in the aftermath of the crisis. For the next phase, we can build in greater resilience to climate and other shocks and reducing women’s and girls’ disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work that is always exacerbated in times of crisis,” said Acting Chief of Economic Empowerment for UN Women, Seemin Qayum.
The success of the first phase of the project that ran from 2014 to 2021 has been attributed in part to the benefits of building synergies and capitalizing on the four implementing agencies’ comparative advantages: FAO’s policy assistance on agriculture and food security; IFAD’s rural investment programs; the U.N. World Food Programme’s food assistance innovations; and UN Women’s technical and policy expertise on women’s economic empowerment.
“Today has been an opportunity to reflect and celebrate the progress we have made in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment, and to look forward to what more we need to do,” said Meike van Ginneken, IFAD’s Associate Vice President, Strategy and Knowledge Department. “Now more than ever, in the wake of the pandemic and the increasingly devastating consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss on rural women and communities- we must continue these efforts. The Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment is well placed to do this and stands ready to scale up.”
Launched in 2014, the Joint Programme was the first such initiative to bring together the three UN Rome based agencies and UN Women — with the goal to spearhead a comprehensive UN system response in support of rural women’s economic empowerment and securing women’s livelihoods and rights. The program has reached over 80,000 rural women in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, and Rwanda. A second phase of this program will be launched in January 2022.
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About the Joint Programme
The Joint Programme on Accelerating Progress towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (JP RWEE) is a global initiative with an overarching goal to secure rural women’s livelihoods and rights in the context of sustainable development and address the key challenges faced by rural women in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, and Rwanda. Jointly implemented by FAO, IFAD, UN Women and WFP and generously supported by the Governments of Norway and Sweden.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide. We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger.
IFAD invests in rural people, empowering them to reduce poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and strengthen resilience. Since 1978, we have provided US$23.2 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached an estimated 518 million people. IFAD is an international financial institution and a United Nations specialized agency based in Rome – the United Nations food and agriculture hub.
The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.
UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.