|
|
|
|
|
Education Investing in human capital is one of the most effective means of reducing poverty and encouraging sustainable development. One study on agricultural productivity showed that four years of primary education increased farmers' productivity by up to 10 percent. Yet women in developing countries usually receive less education than men.
The benefits of schooling for women are not limited to increased productivity. Education can also play a major role in improving the status of women and would significantly improve household health and nutrition, lower child morbidity and mortality rates, and slow population growth. According to one UN study, child mortality would be reduced more effectively by providing women with ten years of education rather than by doubling their income, providing sanitation and piped water, and turning every agricultural worker into a white-collar worker.
Women's education also permits them to earn higher wages. A recent report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) stated that each additional year in school raised womenís earning by about 15 percent, compared with 11 percent for a man. In the agricultural context, education not only helps women achieve higher productivity and enhances their social and professional status, but also enables them to implement measures to protect the environment. Extension Agricultural extension programmes ensure that information on new technologies, plant varieties and cultural practices reaches farmers. However, in the developing world it is common practice to direct extension and training services primarily toward men. A recent FAO survey showed that female farmers receive only five percent of all agricultural extension services worldwide and that only 15 percent of the world's extension agents are women. In Egypt, for example, women account for 53 percent of agricultural labour but only one percent of Egyptian extension officers are women. The resulting lack of information undermines womenís productivity as well as their ability to safeguard the environment by using natural resources in a sustainable way.
Studies on agricultural extension have highlighted a number of weaknesses in reaching rural women. Traditionally, most extension services have been devoted to farmers who own land and who are willing and able to obtain credit and invest it in inputs and technological innovations. Since women often lack access to land, or to other collateral with which to obtain credit, extension services, unintentionally, bypass women. The attitudes of extension personnel have also been found to be an important barrier to reach women with timely and appropriate information. A study of extension in Africa found several commonly held beliefs which asserted that women are not really significant contributors to agricultural production, they are always tied down with household chores and children, they are shy, difficult to reach and resist innovations. Insufficient enrollment of girls in agricultural schools, especially at higher level, is an impedement to increasing the number of female extension workers. Extension programmes, therefore, rarely identify women as an integral part of the target audience. If they did, the benefits would be considerable. In Kenya, following a nationwide information campaign targeted at women under a national extension project, yields of corn increased by 28 percent, beans by 80 percent and potatoes by 84 percent. For too long, policies have been based on the assumption - proved wrong by studies - that information conveyed to the male head of a household would be passed on to its female members. But men do not necessarily discuss production decisions with their wives or transfer extension knowledge to them. Furthermore, policy-makers fail to recognize that men and women are often responsible for different crops, livestock, tasks and income-generating activities and that their extension needs consequently differ. These flawed assumptions almost guarantee disappointing results. In one case in Zambia, extension agents provided male farmers with special measuring beakers to ensure the controlled use of fertilizer, despite the fact that women were responsbile for actually applying the fertilizer. As a result, the women continued to apply the fertilizer without using the beakers and the problem of inaccurate measurements persisted. Extension services usually focus on commercial production rather than on subsistence crops, which are the primary concern of women farmers and also the key to food security in developing countries. Agents will often choose to work with a few farmers judged to have a progressive attitude, while neglecting the resource-poor and landless, including women. To compound the problem, extension meetings are often scheduled at times when women farmers are unable to attend because of their other household responsibilities. As rural women are a vital link in agricultural development, it is essential that they take their place alongside men as full participants in and beneficiaries of extension programmes. FAO helps to sensitize planners, researchers and extension workers to gender issues by developing gender analysis training materials. For example, FAO's Socio-Economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) Programme provides development specialists with practical methods and tools to strengthen their capacities for socio-economic and gender analysis at the regional, national and local levels, and aims to establish a dedicated network of development agents throughout the world.
Communication Communication is a force for change. Information targeted at rural farmers can help them increase the quantity and improve the quality of the food they produce. Just as important is the information collected from them. Many development efforts fail women in particular because planners have a poor understanding of the role women play in farming and household food security: they do not take the time to learn from the women themselves about their activities and needs. To address these deficiencies, FAO launched pilot projects in Namibia and Nepal to improve channels of communication between farmers and extension agents, policy-makers and planners using a participatory approach. In Namibia, a core group of 23 extension agents was trained in gender-sensitive agricultural planning as well as how to encourage farmers to express their needs and participate in the planning. The agents went on to train a further 150 extension staff in the country.
The agents then held a series of meetings in target villages, with project staff as facilitators, to confer with farmers and gradually draw up detailed village profiles that covered the food supply and economic situation, as well as seeing how men and women divided farming tasks and decision-making. Finally, village representatives and extension staff travelled to the capital where they used the village profiles as tools to educate ministry-level policy-makers and planners. In Nepal, 53 district-level outreach personnel were trained in the participatory approach. They then met with more than 500 farmers, later sharing the information gathered with district- and minstry-level policy-makers and planners. Other notable FAO extension activities have proved the effectiveness of participatory approaches in reaching women, from the successful adoption of the Chorkor oven in fishing communities in Ghana, to training women as decision-makers in nutrition in various regions and reshaping the attitudes of extension workers to women in Honduras.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
