The Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division (ESW) supports FAO’s efforts to promote the social and economic well-being of rural populations by providing:

Policy advice and programme assistance to policy makers and development planners to ensure their agricultural and rural development policies and programmes effectively integrate issues of gender and social equity, decent rural employment and the reinforcement of rural institutions into the phases of design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Capacity development for government institutions, partners and FAO units to reinforce their ability to integrate these issues into agricultural and rural development interventions at the programme, policy, institutional and field levels, as well as in technical sub-sectors such as micro finance, livestock and irrigation. The Division’s work in this area includes supporting the capacity of national statistical institutions and specialised government agencies to collect, analyze and use sex-disaggregated statistics. 

Research, analysis and knowledge sharing in the Division’s areas of expertise to support its policy advice, programme assistance and capacity development services and to contribute timely and accurate knowledge and information to a wide range of initiatives including conferences, reports and publications.

Coordination and partnerships. As FAO Focal Point on rural gender and social equity, decent rural employment and the reinforcement of rural institutions, the Division supports the efforts of units across the Organization to address these issues. The Division also coordinates the work of the UN system on gender equality, rural women in agriculture and rural employment as part of the UN System-wide Policy and Programming and the UN Delivering as One Initiative and works closely with a range of partners, including the International Fund for Agricultural development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) on the promotion of rural gender equality and decent rural employment.

Advocacy to promote the importance of including these issues into agricultural and rural development policies and programmes to create more inclusive development interventions that benefit rural women, men and children.