Dear Colleagues,
Undoubtedly, the role of Rural Women in a Sustainable Development is very critical. But, still they are in the rearguard of process of changes, though their commitments and responsibilities in sustaining families are very high. Acknowledging this by society and development continuum is very important prerequisite for increasing the role and empowerment of women in development.
“In order to awaken the people, it is the women who have to be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves, the nation moves.” was saying Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister.
1. If you could make an intervention at the side event on rural women at the 8th session of the Open Working Group in New York, what would be its key message?
There is diversity of issues: ideological, social, religious, ethnic, economic, cultural etc., and no approach could be universal to address them. Cases vary country by country. And one approach to empower women in sustainable development in a certain country or community that could be efficient might be not efficient in other country or case. There are range of issues and causes and consequences. For instance, female-headed households differ from male-headed ones by social and cultural aspects in different extent across many countries. Therefore, multi-stakeholders process of identifying, characterization and clustering of women-related issues across regions and countries would be a good step towards creating tools, formulating actions in case-by-case approach to empower rural women in sustainable development.
2. Rural women are often described as critical agents of change in discussions on sustainable development goals. To what extent would the achievement of food and nutrition security for rural women help accelerate sustainable development?
Considering that 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries (FAO, 2011), obtaining food and nutrition security for rural women definitely help accelerate sustainable development. Additionally, GDP growth in agriculture is four times more effective than GDP growth originating outside the sector in raising incomes of extremely poor people (FAO, World bank). While we talk ‘why food security and nutrition is essential’ first of all with think about the poor and vulnerable people, mostly rural, who lack the access to food and nutrition. On the other hand, in many developing countries smallholders produce the most portion of agricultural commodities. Women usually do unskilled work in agriculture, but still grassroots activities, which are first of all important for sustaining vital activities of their families and children. ‘De-facto’ women are critical contributors to sustainable development.
3. Of the many facts or stats recorded on rural women, which one do you consider to be the most revealing?
FAO report on the State of Food And Agriculture, Women in agriculture: Closing the gender gap for development. Rome, 2011. Increasing women’s access to the resources, services, innovation would increase productivity and generate gains in terms of agricultural production, food security, economic growth and social welfare.
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Д-р. Botir Dosov