FAO statement at the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women - side event 'Rural women and girls: Empowerment as a guarantee for the future'

Side-event at the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women,
organized by AFAMMER (Association of families and women in rural areas)

'Rural women and girls: Empowerment as a guarantee for the future'

As prepared for delivery

Excellencies; Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to thank AFAMMER for inviting FAO to this event that focusses on the importance of empowering rural women and girls.

Today, agriculture and food systems face unprecedented challenges. 

We must feed a growing global population in a context of emerging and persisting crises. 

These include conflicts and war, natural disasters, price volatility, market insecurity, mass migrations, health crises, and more, all of which are exacerbated by climate change, depletion of natural resources, biodiversity loss, rapid urbanization, shifts in dietary patterns and livelihood systems. 

The agriculture sectors are underperforming in many developing countries, and one reason is that women do not have equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive.

Rural women and girls are major agents of change and hold the keys to ending hunger and extreme poverty. 

Not only do rural women and girls often lack access to vital resources and services, but they also face problems related to discrimination and patriarchal gender norms. 

They are burdened with excessive and unpaid domestic work and face gender-based violence. Most importantly, they are often excluded from local decision-making processes and institutions, resulting in their voices often going unheard.

In 2022, the FAO report on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World showed how women have experienced greater food insecurity (both moderate and severe) than men over time (from 2014-2021). 

The gap between the number of women and men suffering from hunger in the world grew 8.3 times between 2018 and 2021, and it keeps widening. This translates into 150 million more women who are food insecure than men in the world. 

There is plenty of compelling evidence that food production and rural incomes increase when gender gaps in agriculture are reduced.

So, empowering rural women brings us closer to our goals to end hunger, achieve food security, and eliminate all forms of malnutrition.

FAO is committed to contributing to overcoming gender inequalities in rural areas and accelerating the economic empowerment of rural women and girls. 

In this sense, FAO designs programs and policies in a holistic way to incorporate gender at different levels and coordinate objectives, actions, and indicators in order to advance gender equality and women's empowerment.

This entails implementing gender-transformative approaches that go beyond isolated interventions targeting single barriers and issues—such as women's access to land— but instead moving toward designing and implementing solutions that could change the system for the long term by removing the structural barriers and advocating for a transformation towards positive and equal gender norms.

FAO is contributing to reduce gender inequalities and boosting women’s empowerment through our work on knowledge generation, policy dialogue, capacity development, partnerships, advocacy and communication.

For example, FAO is working on generating evidence on the status of women in agrifood systems, through the use of sex-disaggregated data and qualitative studies to better understand and address gender-based inequalities.

In this context, FAO has assessed agrifood policies and programmes to identify gaps and opportunities and provides advice and capacity development to various policy platforms and processes, such as the Committee on World Food Security and the negotiations of the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition. 

FAO has also implemented various large-scale projects which put women and girls in rural areas at the center of sustainable food systems transformation in line with the “leave no one behind” principle from the 2030 Agenda. 

Such programs include:

The Joint Programme implemented by FAO, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), The World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Women on Accelerating Progress towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (JP RWEE); and

The Joint Programme implemented with IFAD and WFP on Gender Transformative Approaches for Food Security, Improved Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture (JP GTA).

At country level, we support governments to enhance gender equality in agri-food systems and empower rural women and girls.

At FAO, the Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP) coordinates FAO’s work on various social dimensions including on rural institutions, services, finance, social protection, gender equality, decent rural employment, tenure rights and the right to food. 

To conclude, FAO will sustain its efforts in strengthening gender equality, realizing women’s rights and accelerating their socio-economic empowerment. 

Today’s event is an excellent opportunity to share experiences, learn and work together to better empower rural women and girls.

I thank you for your attention.