The focus of the meeting was on Rural women and distance learning: Regional strategies. The premise for this technical consultation comes from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Plan of Action of the World Food Summit and Women in Development commitments to ensure gender equality in access to resources including information and technology. The Women and Population Division, FAO has developed an action strategy for the role of information under the programme on gender and food security in collaboration with the Research, Extension and Training Division, FAO. The strategy for action acknowledges that the increasing global recognition and attention of women’s economic and social roles is in part linked to the exponential growth of information and communications technologies. As globalisation of the economy and social interactions gain momentum, the impact is rather mixed, with prosperity and inclusion for certain groups, and poverty and exclusion for others. A few factors that contribute to poverty include:
limited access for subsistence farmers, particularly women farmers, to all resources;
inadequate attention paid to the different roles and responsibilities of men and women when formulating agricultural and rural development plans and policies; and
exclusion of large parts of the rural population, including rural women, from information flows, communication processes and thus, decision-making.
Rural women in Asia make significant contributions to the agriculture sector, but their access to information and communication technology and current techniques of production still needs to be improved. Poverty is not just economic, but it is also information poverty that reinforces marginalisation. Hence, the FAO strategy of action for information identifies a dual approach that can be summed up as “Information on Rural Women and Information for Rural Women.” The information on rural women approach aims to improve the gender-specific data to advise policy makers on gender responsive planning and resource allocation in the agriculture and rural development sectors. The information for rural women approach aims to provide information for empowering women with knowledge for their advancement in the economic and social spheres, within their households, as well as in their communities and nation.
Key factors affecting the progress of rural women are their high representation among the illiterate, their poor education, their lack of timely and adequate access to modern technologies, and their insufficient skills. The gender-differentiated access to resources is rooted in gender biases embedded in the society. These biases could be countered through information dissemination. A potential threat exists, however, that with exponential growth in information related to economic and social participation and in the technologies that disseminate information at high speed, the educational divide (formal and informal) could be further exaggerated among rural women. Therefore, it is important that the educational resources in the region be mobilized to eliminate the inequity suffered by rural women in their access to education and information. The Asian region has yet to fully utilise its immense potential of the distance learning (DL) approach for developing human resources for agriculture and rural development, particularly among rural women. Hence, the consultation examined regional distance learning strategies and identified resources to mobilise and application approaches in distance-learning programmes for the advancement of rural women.
Social and physical distances isolate rural women and girls and impair their economic and social advancement. The consultation explored regional opportunities and constraints to reduce rural women and girls’ isolation and to accelerate their advancement through innovative educational programmes. To this end, the consultation sought to identify means and measures to apply regional distance learning resources and innovative educational programmes. A greater availability of Information Communication Technologies holds a potential to accelerate rural women’s access to learning. Appropriate ICTs would facilitate national efforts to achieve faster and timelier educational delivery and to improve the learning process. The consultation reviewed application of ICTs as tools to provide distance education that will reduce the knowledge and information gap of rural women and girls. However, it should be emphasized that ICTs are only tools for transferring information; the appropriate knowledge is the fundamental concern. The priority, then, is on the quality and relevance of educational resources and learning achievement among rural clients, particularly rural women and girls. Hence, the emphasis is placed on gender equality in rural human resource development using the distance education programmes. Within this context, the consultation aimed to identify regional resources and strategies to meet the learning needs of rural women and girls.
Current 2001 expert consultation builds on the ongoing activities in the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific related to harnessing ICTs for the advancement of rural women. These activities have focussed on identifying modalities of distance learning and Open University programmes that could be used for improving the status of rural women. The Year 2000 consultation recognised that “Agriculture Education System and Distance Learning System at all levels, (formal and non-formal, primary, secondary, tertiary, technical/vocational and life-long education) recognising the needs of rural women and girls should aim for impact-oriented collaborations. A key partnership should be forged for promoting rural access to education and contemporary learning through effective collaboration among the key institutions that focus on agriculture education and distance learning. In Asia, FAO could facilitate productive associations among the existing educational systems that focus on formal and informal education. The partnerships between these two educational systems could accelerate the educational access by rural populations, particularly for rural women and girls to achieve empowerment through information and knowledge” (FAO, 2000).
The Year 2000 consultation recommended that FAO should:
A. support a forum of selected experts from open and distance learning systems and agriculture education and extension systems in exploring and enhancing application of distance learning resources for the education and socio-economic advancement of rural women and girls; and
B. develop a regional strategy document in the area of distance learning programmes for rural women and girls.
The FAO 2001 consultation on Rural women and distance learning: Regional strategies was a responsive follow up to these recommendations of the Year 2000 consultation.
