Project overview:

Women contribute significantly to agriculture and food production while also taking care of their families and households, looking after kitchen gardens and small livestock, and preparing agricultural products for home consumption or for sale. Many rural women also collect fuel and water, which further increases their daily workload. Such responsibilities together with the work performed by women often go unrecognized and uncompensated. 

Rural women also face barriers in access to various resources that can improve their economic status. Among these are property, including land, decent employment opportunities, technology, credit, and information and skills. Evidence from FAO demonstrates that these gender-based inequalities are to a significant extent responsible for the underperformance of the agriculture sector.

The project will help grass-roots rural women in Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan, gain knowledge and skills to improve their economic status, start businesses and cooperatives, while empowering them to become agents of change in their communities.

The project will also contribute to the creation of an enabling environment for rural women’s economic empowerment, by developing the capacities of policymakers and practitioners to formulate evidence-based, socially inclusive and gender-responsive policies in agriculture and food security, and supporting institutional frameworks to translate these policies into action on the ground.

The project will create a regional platform where the ministries of agriculture of Turkey, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will share challenges, best practices and policy solutions for the implementation of gender responsive agriculture and rural development policies and programmes with the support of regional workshops. Participants from other countries will also have an opportunity to share experiences and best practices that address the needs of rural women. Awareness-raising campaigns to recognize rural women’s contribution to agriculture and rural development will be conducted, informed by regional success stories that provide inspiration to rural women across the region.