Step It Up Together with Rural Women to End Hunger and Poverty - Side-event at the 61st Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Your Excellency, First Lady of the Republic of Zambia

Excellencies

Distinguished Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

• I am honoured to welcome you to this side-event.

This is a joint effort event organized by FAO, the European Union and the Slovak Republic, together with our sister agencies IFAD, WFP and UN Women.

 

It is to be recalled that last year, FAO partnered with the European Union and the Slovak Republic in organizing a High-Level Event “Step it Up Together with Rural Women to End Hunger and Poverty”. The event took place on 16 December 2016 in the FAO headquarters in Rome.

 

We decided to organize the High-Level Event because we are still concerned about the many challenges that rural women continue to face as producers, processors, traders, workers, and entrepreneurs. The purpose of the High-Level Event was to outline the way forward for unleashing the potential of rural women to end hunger and poverty.

 

The High-Level Event brought together distinguished participants from FAO member countries, the European Union, other UN entities, the international community, and the broader civil society.

 

The discussions of the High-Level Event highlighted that rural women are indeed critical agents of change to end hunger and poverty.

 

Furthermore, two important – and closely inter-linked – areas for action were identified:

 

First, the need to economically empower rural women to realize Sustainable  Development Goals 1, 2, and 5. For this to happen, we need to remove the social, economic and policy barriers that limit women’s access to productive resources, technology, markets, decent employment, and social protection. Equally important is promoting women's participation and voice at all levels of society.

 

Second, the importance to put into practice transformative approaches that tackle the underlying socio-cultural causes of gender inequality in rural areas. This requires combining gender mainstreaming and women-specific actions with broader strategies such as inclusive dialogue and building political commitment for gender-transformative rural development. The engagement of men is also an important element for achieving positive results.

 

The High-Level Event demonstrated stakeholders’ commitment to reinforce efforts to empower rural women and girls, as well as their strong support for multi-stakeholder partnerships. The Event was also a major opportunity to clarify and reassert the agricultural sector’s unique comparative advantage to contribute to achieving gender equality in rural areas.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to take further the discussions that took place in Rome on 16 December last year. Let us use this event as a platform to exchange experiences, lessons learned, and ideas for the way forward to unleash the potential of rural women.

 

Today’s event is one in a series of actions we are taking to reaffirm our commitment to empowering rural women.

 

This cause lies at the very heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: we must empower rural women if we are to free the world from hunger and poverty, leaving no one behind.

 

Today we have the opportunity to step it up together with rural women.

 

Thank you for your attention. I wish us all productive deliberations.