Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Hello,

I am writing from the OECD Development Centre where we are currently working on the update of the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), a cross-country measure of discriminatory social institutions that hold back women and girls’ from realising their rights. One important area covered in the SIGI is women’s access to resources and assets including land. Results from 2014 found that in 102 countries women still face discriminatory laws and customs in accessing land and non-land assets. Although it is widely acknowledged that legal equality does not automatically translate into equality of outcomes, the SIGI confirms this: of the 102 countries where discrimination was found, only 7 countries had legal discrimination, the remaining 94 countries granted women and men the same legal rights to access land, but customary, traditional and religious practices curtail women’s rights in practice.

Discriminatory inheritance laws are another significant barrier women and girls face when accessing family land and property: in over 100 countries there is evidence of discriminatory inheritance laws or practices limiting women’s ability to inherit equally as daughters and spouses. This ranges from negative social norms that beleive only men should own land to acts of property grabbing.

When we think about how we can best achieve gender transformative impacts, it is important to see how we can improve on the enormous amount of work already being done. Over USD 3 billion of Official Development Assistance was committed to rural and agriculture projects targeted gender equality and women’s empowerment; however only around 5% of this aid targeted gender equality as a principle objective (approximately USD 187 million). Thus, projects with the ability to transform negative gender roles and empower rural women and girls remain a small part of rural and agricultural development aid. Harnessing this aid and improving on the existing work already being done through the application of a social norms lens to the design and implementation process is one way to ensure that it benefits rural women and girls.

In addition there is a need to invest in data that captures not just outcomes but also social norms that drive the gender gaps in outcomes. The SIGI Uganda country study, launched in 2015, was the first nationally representative survey measuring discriminatory social imitations. The results from the report highlight how discriminatory practices such as unequal inheritance or land ownership are often grounded in discriminatory attitudes. Indeed, the survey found that there is widespread support for gender inequality in land ownership: 27% of the population supports unequal land rights, reaching as high as 54% in the Mid-Northern sub-region. This is reflected in women’s lower levels of land ownership: only one-third of land is owned or co-owned by women. This any policy that wishes to support women’s land ownership will need to address these discriminatory attitudes.

Hi. I would like to respond to the 2nd question - are we using the right approahes in addressing closure of the gender gap. Two strategies have been said to be used 1- Women empowerment and 2 -Gender and deveopment. Apparently most organisations have then decided to dwell on strategy 1 which is what most of us are all talking about. But from what i am seeing strategy 1 has sustainability issues. Gender equality and equity are being exercised in a way that leverages women to be 'empowered' but even when they are up there, they are still not confident because they feel they were favoured to be there. When male counterparts jeer at them for making a simple mistake they crash easily. Hence she is left in a worse of case than where she was before. In some projects I have worked for, women are given start up capital for their businesses but still they are robbed of those finances by their husbands, and still cant report back about it. If she decided to stand her ground and fight back it then results in a divorce.

But if organisations are to dwell more on strategy 2 - gender and development, it means men will be equally engaged on gender issues as much as women. Men generally being more influencial than women can then speed up the process of closing the gender gap. Often men fight gender related issues because most of them do not understand how it will benefit them as men. hence lack of knowedge is resulting in resistance. Yes women may be empowered, and do all kinds of things but men will always remain her draw back unless men fully understands what gender is about, then he will gladly pull women up. 

The gender and development strategy is the way to go.

Hello,

I would like to contribute on "Question 3: How best can we achieve gender transformative impacts".

I strongly believe in the power of education and the influence our educational systems can have in making our fight for gender equality feasible. The world is where it is today because of the way we were educated and brought up some years back. Before the second world war, most women never worked because they weren't given the opportunities to do so, until the need arose for women to work in factories and production houses because most of the men who actually were the workforce at that time had gone to war. Since then, the liberation of women has been slow but sure, but we all agree that more needs to be done.

I believe special modules on gender equality should be incorporated in our school systems right from primary school. We shouldn't wait till we get to the university and then start hearing about gender equality. By then, society would have pumped in so many ideologies that make people function in a biased manner uncosciously.

But if we are to start from down up, we will have a whole new generation of people who think differently. Thank you.

Dr. Samuel Opoku Gyamfi

Regional Coordinator - North Africa

CSAYN.

What are the main challenges rural women and girls are facing today?

Some of the main challenges of rural women - which were already mentioned in the online discussion- remain time poverty (women’s disproportionate responsibility for domestic work and unpaid care) and lack of access to / control over financial resources and assets such as land. Recently WOCAN conducted an assessment of the Gender integration in REDD+ and ERPD in Nepal and concluded that rural women are still facing the following challenges:

1. A high level of engagement in labor- intensive forest- related unpaid activities on a daily basis, but low level of engagement in decision-making processes.
2. Women’s workloads within and outside the household is high and “time poverty” is a critical issue. Their traditional roles as family care givers and food producers are unpaid and under-valued, and take up most of women’s time and energy
3. Women’s access to resources to improve their income and roles in decision-making is low.

http://www.wocan.org/news/final-sharing-workshop-assessment-gender-integration-redd-and-erpd-nepal

Some of the conditions that contribute to empower women as entrepreneurs include their access to trainings to build their skills in leadership, negotiation and business, and access to financial services; as well as their access to technologies that reduce their workloads and improve the productivity of their production; the capacity of women to organize in groups and cooperatives (or be active members in mixed cooperatives) can also facilitate their negotiation power and access to better inputs and markets.

Are we using the right approaches and policies to close the gender gap?

Beyond the lack of investment in women and women’s organizations, one element that is lacking is a robust means of measuring outcomes of projects, approaches, policies (going beyond outputs) to better understand what works and improve design and implementation.

WOCAN developed the W+ Standard to address those gaps (https://youtu.be/LGQ5KupYaKs). At this time, certification schemes and standards do not quantify benefits or outcomes to women of project communities; many refer only to gender and women in relation to their workplaces or social safeguards.

The W+ Standard measures progress in women’s empowerment in six areas: Time, Income & Assets, Health, Leadership, Education & Knowledge and Food Security. The measurement of progress in projects, which is verified by an independent auditor, results in W+ women-benefit units, that individuals, companies and investors can buy, and be confident that their investment is making a meaningful and measurable positive impact. A share of the sale of units goes back to women and women’s groups. Putting money directly into women’s hands has proven to be transformative for their lives, as they are more likely than men to reinvest this to meet needs of their families and communities.

By measuring results and putting money into the hands of women, the W+ Standard can contribute to incentivizing project developers and investors to invest in women and contribute simultaneously to SDG # 5 and other SDGs where women play a critical.

The W+ Standard was recognized by the UNFCCC and awarded the Women for Results award of the Momentum for Change in 2016. A video produced by the UNFCCC shows the application of the W+ Standard to a biogas project in Nepal (https://youtu.be/bm-hyVY7680)

Thank you for organizing this important forum!

--

Maria Lee

Assistant Director | Regional Coordinator for Europe

WOCAN

What are the main challenges rural women and girls are facing today in Nigeria?

The key challenges of rural women in Nigeria include Socio-cultural constraints: the patriarchal nature of Nigerian culture is a key challenge. Also  unequal access and control over resources. Insufficient knowledge and access to information have also affected economic empowerment of women in general and women headed households in particular. Gender violence is also part of the challenge. However, although a lot remains to be done there are improvements in the recent years.

Women  do not have equal access to productive resources . There is gender disparities in land holdings. Access to resources, and Participation in decision making Inclusion of women in programmes from the onset not as an addendum will help in bridging the knowledge gap

Omitoyin Siyanbola (PhD)

Fisheries Administration, Policy and Gender Dept of Aquaculture & Fisheries Mgt,  University of Ibadan, Nigeria. 

Contribution from the Kenyan Chapter of the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network  (CSAYN)

1

Undeniably,  life  in  the  rural  areas  has  experienced  change  in  the  past  two  decades.  Whether  the change  has  been  positive  or  negative  for  its  dwellers,  however,  depends  on  where  in  the  world you  look.  Positive  change  can  be  attributed  to  the  inclusion  of  rural  people’s  interests  in  most national  discussions.  There  have  also  been  numerous  inquiries  made  by  private  actors  into  the livelihoods  of  rural  women,  the  most  recent  being  a  declaration  by  the  Associated  Country Women  of  the  World  to  convene  the  first  International  Forum  on  Rural  Women  and  mark  the International  Day  of  Rural  Women.   This  attention  has  led  to  rural  electrification  projects, construction  of  proper  transport  systems  and  incorporation  of  technology  in  rural  agricultural schemes.  Conversely,  in  other  countries  such  as  the  USA  the  widespread  closure  of  rural industries  such  as  Rubbermaid  and  Smith  Corona  and  outsourcing  of  production  to  cheaper labour  markets  has  left  many  people  unemployed,  both  male  and  female.

 It  is  important  to  also acknowledge  that  for  some  rural  women,  life  has  remained  virtually  unchanged  throughout  the decades.  Their  respective  governments  have  not  been  able  to  promote  development  in  these regions; some deliberately. In  spite  of  the  numerous  leaps  and  bounds  made,  there  is  still  a  chasm  between  the  sexes. Inequality  exists  at  every  level  of  society.  In  rural  areas,  however,  is  where  these  inequalities manifest  in  their  rawest  form.  Young  girls  are  forced  into  early  marriage.  These  marriages  have very  low  success  rates,  more  often  leaving  the  woman  to  raise  the  children  unaided.  Needless  to say,  this  deprives  them  of  a  high  quality  education  leading  to  economic  stagnation.  Older  women lack  proper  geriatric  care  as  they  are  more  likely  to  be  the  only  dependable  source  of  sustenance for  their  families.  After  all,  it  has  been  reported  that  women  spend  90%  of  their  earned  income on  their  families  compared  to  30%  of  men.  In  Africa,  Asia  and  even  Latin  America,  culture  has been  by  far  the  biggest  impediment.  We  have  zealously  clung  to  beliefs  that  insist  on  the submission  of  women.   

In  Kenya,  where  rural  urbanization  has  been  a  relative  success,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  rural communities  to  even  engage  in  cross-border  Female  Genital  Mutilation.  This  is  despite enactment  of  a  statute  directly  criminalizing  this  activity .  Even  more  noteworthy,  leaders  from those  particular  communities  that  have  risen  to  national  leadership  positions  have  completely ignored these activities in return for political support. Regardless, a  considerable  number of  women  have  risen  to wealth  and good  fortune.  As  easy  as it  is  to  attribute  this  to  plain  hard  work  and  sweat,  it  goes  deeper.  The  reality  of  the  situation  is that  there  are  simply  no  success  models  in  the  rural  setting.  If  there  are,  the  pathways  are  highly limited,  marred  with  obstacles  and  almost  miraculous.  Almost  always,  the  attainment  of  success is  contingent  on  either  physically  leaving  these  areas  or  an  internal  dissociation  from  the  ‘smalltown’  mentality  by  these  women.  In  truth,  the  rural  definition  of  success  for  women  lies  on  their ability  to  marry  and  produce  children.  A  girl  may  actively  pursue  their  primary  and  high  school education  but  it  rarely  goes  beyond  that;  a  life  of  academic  success  and  its  accompanying  returns are  a fantasy  in that environment.

2

The  battle  for  policy  reform  and  institution  is  gradually  being  won.  With  the  exception  of countries  like  Sudan,  U.S.A,  Tonga,  failing  to  ratify  the  Convention  Against  All  Forms  of Discrimination  Against  Women  (CEDAW) ,  many  countries  have  made  considerable  efforts  to effect  policy  that  furthers  gender  equality.  Even  so,  the  disconnect  between  ratification  and implementation  of  relevant  policy  is  equally  global.  Rural  women  are  especially  vulnerable  to these  failures  because  of  their  isolation.  It  is  time  to  focus  on  other  fronts.  It  is  time  to  realize that  any  and  all  the  policies  we  conceive  are  at  their  core,  only  an  ideology.  The  only  reason, for example,  that  Constitutions  govern  nations,  is  because  the  individual  citizens  have  agreed  to abide  by their stipulations. 

Although  gender  equality  is  often  presented  as  a  stand-alone  goal,  there  is  agreement  that progress  on  any  and  all  of  the  SDGs  will  be  minimal  if  gender  equality  is  not  prioritized.  Arguments and  evidence  from  the  Organisation  for  Economic  Cooperation  and  Development  (OECD)  Social Institutions  and  Gender  Index  (SIGI)  find  that  lower  levels  of  discrimination  against  women  are linked  to  better  outcomes  in  several  areas,  including  educational  attainment,  child  health  and food  security.  For  example,  where  women  have  a  more  equal  status  in  the  family,  children  are more  likely  to  complete  primary  school,  even  when  allowing  for  differences  in  country  income level,  urbanization  and  the  fertility  rate.  Where  women  have  greater  “physical  integrity”  (control over  their  own  bodies),  child  health  outcomes  improve.  Similarly,  countries  where  women  lack any  right  to  own  land  have  on  average  60%  more  malnourished  children .  At  The  Farm Management  Association  of  Nigeria’s  2004  Conference,  it  was  presented  that  African  women have  mainly  shouldered  the  responsibility  for  domestic  food  production  and  processing.  FAO (1983)  estimates  show  that  in  West  Africa,  60-90  percent  of  the  domestic  farm  and  marine produce  are  handled  by  women.  Women  farmers  work  on  the  average  from  10-14  hours  in  many parts  of  Africa  and  carry  multiple  responsibilities  for  food,  water,  fuel,  housework  and  childcare making  their  agricultural  productivity  lower  than  it  need  be 6 .  Private  companies  are  aware  that supporting  rural  women  will  increase  profits.  Paradoxically,  few  to  none  are  investing  huge amounts  of  money  in  efforts  to  improve  their  competiveness  by  promoting  women’s empowerment  in  their  supply  chains;  even  though  many  strive  to  project  the  image  of  a  gendersensitive  (or  transformative)  company.  In  fact,  OXFAM’s  Behind  The  Brands  revealed  that  despite women  contributing  43%  of  the  agricultural  labour  force,  the  big  ten  food  companies  are  barely prioritizing  women’s  support;  with  the  best,  Coca-Cola,  scoring  a 6  out  of  a  possible  10.  Efforts have  been made,  however,  by  the  likes  of Kellogg’s (making  the  most significant  leap  in  the  past year), Unilever and MARS. A lot more could be  done but, in  a capitalistic world, the  truth is that it will require significant buy-in to  support differentiated empowerment  for female  workers.   

Most  companies  are  also  reluctant  to  focus  on  a  female  workforce  in  areas  where  increased mobility  of  women  results  in  an  increase  in  gender-based  violence.  This  translates  to  sporadic interruptions of the production chain.

3

 It’s  time  for  mankind  to  look  inward.  In  Stanislaw  Lem’s  words:  “Mankind  has  gone  out  to  explore other  worlds  without  having  explored  his  own  dark  passages  and  secret  chambers;  and  without finding  what  lies  behind  doorways  that  he  himself  has  sealed.”    The  root  causes  of  gender inequality  are  only  partially  understood.  We  need  strategies  that  will  directly  target  cultural norms  and  informal  institutions  in  societies.  Otherwise,  the  impact  of  any  external  efforts  will only  be  temporary.  These  norms  are  largely  to  blame  for  the  perceived  lack  of  interest  by  the private  sector  in  engaging  with  rural  women  as  economic  actors  despite  its  proven  benefits  and the  fact  that  Africa  has  been  described  as  the  region  of  female  farming  per  excellence,  with women,  particularly  in  the  rural  areas  regarded  as  the  hidden  productive  force  in  the countryside  . In  conclusion,  the  hearts  of  men  must  embrace  the  value  of  gender  equality.  Cultural  and religious  beliefs  still  insist  on  separation  of  gender  roles  often  to  the  detriment  of  the  woman. Drafting  of  policy  without  first  addressing  these  roots  only  serves  to  build  resentment  as  opposed to  respect  between  the  sexes.  In  Wollstonecraft’s  A  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Woman  she scribed,  “…  I  appeal  to  their  understandings;  and,  as  a  fellow-creature,  claim,  in  the  name  of  my sex,  some  interest  in  their  hearts.  I  entreat  them  to  assist  to  emancipate  their  companion,  to  make her  a  help  meet  for  them!  Would  men  but  generously  snap  our  chains,  and  be  content  with rational  fellowship  instead  of  slavish  obedience,  they  would  find  us  more  observant  daughters, more  affectionate  sisters,  more  faithful  wives,  more  reasonable  mothers  –  in  a  word,  better citizens.” She  could not  have summarized better. 

On the question, what approaches have proved successful to address deeply rooted gender norms, power relations and social institutions? 

Quoting from an interesting article, "A field of her own:Advancing rights of women farmers can revolutionise the rural ecosystem, by Tarini Mohan (http://googleweblight.com/i?u=http%3A%2F%2Findianexpress.com%2Farticle%… ), the chance of propertied women being physically abused is reduced from 49 per cent to 7 per cent due to an increase in the wife’s bargaining power. But, as many as 87 per cent of women do not own their land; only 12.7 per cent of them do. Moreover, despite their hard labour in the field, women are not officially counted as farmers, and are either labelled “agricultural labourers” or “cultivators”. This is because the government does not recognise them as farmers those who do not have a claim to land under their name in official records.

Some key points taken from this article may lead to successful approaches to address deeply rooted gender norms, power relations and social institutions:

1.Providing women with access to secure land is key to incentivising the majority of India’s women farmers.

2.With security of tenure, female farmers should be provided with the three critical driving factors — the incentive, the security, as well as the opportunity — to invest in the land they harvest.

3. The government should not label women merely as “agricultural labourers” or “cultivators” but recognise them as farmers even if they do not have a claim to land under their name in official records. We need to change the stereotypical image of an Indian farmer- a mustachioed man, clad in a white dhoti with farming tools in hand. Women in India constitute close to 65 per cent of all agricultural workers as also,  74 per cent of the rural workforce, is female.

Finally, we need to create a new image of farmer, which is women inclusive!

Contribution to FAO Discussion on Rural Women: Striving for gender transformation impacts

By Taibat Moji Yusuf, Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria

Introduction

Gender defines how power and resources are shared among females and males. Both rural women and men throughout the world are engaged in a range of activities essential for household welfare, agricultural productivity, and economic growth. However, women’s substantial contributions are marginalized and undervalued in conventional agricultural analyses and policies. Policy makers and agricultural administrators assumed that farmers are men while women only give helping hands on the farm. For this reason most government policies, programmes and services were mainly focused on male farmers. However, the changing rural social structure resulting from male out-migration and wars has drastically changed gender responsibility. Rural women are becoming more responsible for household food security and children welfare as indicated by the increasing number of female headed households in the developing countries. Estimated numbers are 45% in Kenya,35% in Malawi, 30-40%in Zambia and 15% in Nigeria (FAO 2005). The main global challenge now is how to make the female farmers who had no access to education, land and other productive resources and were victims of the harmful cultural practices to do the work of “male” farmers effectively and efficiently and also to ensure gender balance in agricultural development. The rest of the discussion looks at the challenges of gender balance, the consequences of the challenges and how the challenges could be tackled to ensure gender balance when there will be equal participation of women and men in decision making, equal ability to exercise their human rights, equal access and control of resources and benefits of development.

Major Challenges to gender equality in Agricultural production in Nigeria

These are grouped under four major headings;

1) Women Legal and cultural status: these have to do with cultural laws, customs, beliefs and attitudes in some communities which confine rural women mostly to the domestic sphere and limits their participation in politics and public activities. They affect women access to productive resources, services, education, employment and credit. In some regions in Nigeria, girls are not allowed to go to school or are often removed from school instead of boys to help with farming and household work anytime there is a work burden in the family. Also Women are made to handle low-paid tasks in agro-processing and their wages are usually lower than males.

2) Property rights and inheritance laws: Lack of property right and the patrilineal system of land inheritance operating in most regions in Nigeria, do not permit women to have direct access to lands and other natural resources except through their husbands and male relatives. Since access to land and property right are tied to access to credit and acquisition of capital assets, women often have difficulty obtaining credit or acquire capital like the new labour and time saving farm innovations. Extension service which is to provide agricultural information and access to farm resources is equally tied to farmers’ land title and making women to lose out in important information and training that will improve their farm efficiency.

3) Gender Role; has to do with behaviours and tasks that a society considers appropriate for men, women, boys and girls. In some societies, male are mainly responsible for commercial agriculture. They prepare land, irrigate the crops, harvest and transport to markets. They own and trade large animals, cut, haul and fell timbers from forest. Women and girls play largely unnoticed, unpaid but important roles in generating family income by providing labour for planting, weeding, harvesting and threshing crops and processing produce for sale. In most parts of Nigeria, women are responsible for maintaining households, raise children, grow and prepare food, manage small animals, collect fuel wood and water

4) . Financial systems that perpetuate women discrimination; Banks consider women a higher risk because they do not trust women entrepreneurship ability and as such do not provide credit to women. They do not have gender- specific modes of transactions, they expect women to handle voluminous bookwork as educated male farmers and demand for loan collaterals which by right (rural) women do not have. Most of the financial institutions including newly introduced Microfinance banks are concentrated in the urban areas rather than rural areas where are large number of women farmers who seriously need financial assistance.

Consequences of the Gender constraints; considered under two major aspects include;

1) Economic exclusion resulting into

wasted Human capital

low labour productivity

low agricultural production

food insecurity and

slow development

2) High Social Cost in terms of

High rates of under nutrition

High infant mortality

and high HIV/AIDS infection among others

Ways to address the deeply rooted gender norms and involving men and boys to achieve gender transformative impacts

This aspect is considered under the three tiers of government levels operating in Nigeria including Local Government Authorities (LGAs), State Government and Federal Government levels

Local Government Authority

The property and land inheritance law which inhibits rural women from having direct access to land and other natural resources could be addressed right at the local government level. All it takes is to encourage formation of separate cooperative societies among men and women. These societies are to be registered in each local government areas (LGAs) of the country. Since women do not have right to property, the local government authorities should acquire large parcels of land, clear and prepare the land then distributes on legal basis amongst the registered women cooperative members. Similar treatment should be extended to males without access to land (this group can be known through farm analysis). Those male farmers with land asset should be encouraged to pull their assets together and work as registered cooperative groups to benefit from the transformation agenda of the government. The separation of the groups will make it easier for women to participate actively in agricultural production without any fear of being molested or shortchanged by men. It will also provide the opportunity for women to own land and better bargaining power in the purchase of farm inputs and selling of their farm produce. Education and training which has always been the main problem of most women, preventing them from accessing credit, productive resources and use of modern technologies could also be handled through this arrangement using staff of the extension units of the local government authorities. The legal status of women could be addressed by the inclusion of Government / policy processes in the extension programme. This will help men and women to know their rights and how to fight for their rights.

In a nutshell a well coordinated and managed LGAs is the solution to problems of property right and land law, education and training, legal status and better bargaining power in buying and selling activities

State Government Level

Because of the very low level of education, culture and norms , rural women in Nigeria still depend largely on hired labour on their private farms for land clearing and preparation ( to complement their personal labour) at exhorbitant prices because they have to compete with the male farmers in this regard. They also supply labour on their husband farms in the area of planting, weeding, fertilizer application, harvesting and processing in addition to the domestic workload thus, making their work more over whelming and less attractive. To tackle the labour problem, Nigeria Government established national center for agricultural mechanization (NCAM) in two states Ilorin in Kwara State and Ibadan in Oyo State to provide simple improved farm tools for rural farmers. Although the gesture is in the right direction, NCAM products are few, expensive and not gender friendly. Most of their products are constructed for male farmers.

For the purpose of gender equality, a gender specific tool which will save labour, cost, time and can be easily handled by both men and women should be provided. The centers may be provided with recommended specifications and funds to produce large quantity.

To ensure usage and patronage, the centers should be replicated in all states. The earlier formed farmers’ cooperative societies in each LGAs should register separately with the centers in their states. Gender specific tools produced by the centers should then be distributed to the different groups of farmers on loan to be paid back after harvesting. Each society should be made to sell their produce directly to the centers since the centers have various storage facilities such silos, cribs and cool room to their credit. This will allow the centers to deduct their money and pay the farmers their dues. The produce bought from the farmers can be supplied directly to the processing companies for value addition Thus NCAM could be used as an assembling centre for farm produce as well as collecting center tor processing companies to ensure fair transaction devoid of the harmful practices of middlemen

However the centers need initial funding ,for replication in each state and large production of their products. The initial funding should be in form of revolving loan which should be paid back as soon as the centers find their feet. The refund of the loan should be made on yearly basis as they collect their pay from the farmers. The cooperative farmers and the processing companies also need funding for their various initial take off.

Positive transformation to farm mechanization, active participation by individuals in the society and value addition food chains will be made possible through this arrangement and will later translate to increased food production, farmers income, food security and poverty reduction.

Federal Government level

National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme is a Nigerian programme organized for young graduates to serve their fatherland after graduation. It was established by the FG several decades ago to foster unity among the youths and provide man power where such is lacking. Right now the program seems to have outlived its usefulness, because the youths in some states are been used as sacrificial lambs for the purpose of politics. The program can be rebranded and made more functional by diverting the energy and interest of the vibrant youths towards productive agricultural activities. Doing this will engage both the boys and girls in productive activities where they can acquire entrepreneurship skills which will prepare them for real life experience and curb the problem of youth restlessness resulting from idleness and unemployment which often lead into various vices in the country. In addition the arrangement will provide plenty of agricultural produce for home consumption and exportation.

The Procedure for engaging the youths

The government needs to procure large area of land in each state, Provides tractors and implements for land clearing and preparation, farm inputs, improved seeds and seedlings, storage facilities, processing facilities and regular payment of the corps allowance. The corps members in each state should be grouped according to their fields of interest to handle various aspects of agriculture. For instance ,those in education and extension may be made to handle extension education, those in medicals to take care of their colleagues, those in animal science to take care of animal management, the veterinary to take care of animal reproduction and health, those in economics to coordinate the farm activities and handle the issues of trading (buying and selling) . The few youths who are not educated could be absorbed at the local government level.

Here, I want to share two cases from rural and remote mountain region of Nepal with respect to Q3. Although it’s simple and small initiative, it makes us think about such initiatives with respect to improving nutrition of women and children. 

In one of the remote districts of mid-west Nepal, woman farmers have now realized nutritional importance of growing vegetables instead of tobacco in their field. Under the Nutrition in Mountain Agro-ecosystems (NMA) project funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and jointly implemented by IFOAM-Organics International, FiBL and HELVETAS Swill Intercooperation, there is a ‘school nutrition garden’ micro-intervention which is being implemented by a local NGO: Women Upliftment and Awareness Centre (WUAC) in Mugu district. Under this micro-intervention, the students are taught about theoretical and practical knowledge and skill on nutrition and nutrition sensitive agriculture. Technical persons from District Agriculture Development Office, District Health Office also provide technical knowledge about, for instance, composting, importance of nutrients to human health, nutritional importance of local food and method to grow it, hygiene and sanitation to the students on monthly basis. This knowledge are being ultimately replicated in household level of the students. Their mothers – woman being nutrition gatekeeper of a family – learn such knowledge from their children. As a result, the greenery that was due to tobacco in their land is now replaced by seasonal and off-season vegetables, as mentioned in the paragraph below.

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‘Now we don’t plant tobacco now, rather cultivate leafy vegetables, carrot, fruits’

- Mrs. Tara Khadka, Chairperson, School Nutrition Garden, Ima village, Mugu

Earlier we used the leisure time after household chore in smoking tobacco. We used to plant tobacco leaves in our land; only the green in our land was tobacco. Even young girls used to consume it, and still many people consume it. After intervention of nutrition garden in our school, we knew about its health hazard from our children. We also got knowledge about health benefits of vegetable crops and its consumption; we knew about including vegetables, green leafy vegetables, fruits, meat, egg, pulse in our daily diet. From our children, we know about new technology to grow it. I have now started cultivating vegetables in small kitchen garden for household consumption. I also provide vegetables in day food for my children. I also sell excess vegetables in the local market – the earning has supported my family expense including health, children’s education.

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Such type of intervention, in spite of its limited coverage, has been effective in changing behavior of people, particularly of women towards agriculture and nutrition, and is helping to improve nutrition of their children and family. Considering its bright side, District Education Office – for wider impact – has prepared a curriculum on nutrition and nutrition sensitive agriculture and is being taught to the students of grade 1-5 in 18 schools now. The District Education Office has decided to teach the course to the students of grade 1-10 in all schools from the fiscal year 2018/019 in the district.

The NMA project is promoting and scaling-up such nutrition sensitive agricultural practices in mountain agro-ecosystems through an action network of empowered rural service providers (RSPs), which is named as Mountain Agro-ecosystems Action Network - MAAN (https://maan.ifoam.bio).

Similarly, some of the RSPs involved in MAAN are also using various types of role play and demonstration to improve the nutrition of children and mothers of golden 1000 days and reduce gender discrimination in remote rural mountain in Nepal. In the region, there is a big gap in nutrition among pregnant, lactating women and children under the age of 5 years. Usually, Nepali women have many different tasks at household level: caring for their children, preparing food, collecting firewood and water, sometimes looking after the livestock, and a lot more tasks. The challenge is that they go on with these tasks during their pregnancy and the lactating time. Women face serious health problems and risk the life of the baby (by having a uterine prolapse). Among the local people, the relation between the workload of pregnant women and uterus prolapse is often not known and ignored.

To make families and especially men aware of women’s burden, their own and their child’s need of care, and their need of a balance diet (especially during the 1000 golden days), the RSPs organized different role plays as part of local level food fair in Dailekh district. They invited the husbands of the intervention to join the role plays, and make them aware about the situation of their wives. During the role play, the men got some pillows under their clothes to feel a big belly and were ask to move around, miming typical work of women. In this way, they could feel some difficulties and realize the tasks of their wives. In the end, the people including local politicians asked men to be more cooperative with women in sharing household responsibilities and to ignore the so-called ‘natural’ division of work between men and women.

Story I

Story II

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Another SDC-funded and HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal-implemented project – Sustainable Soil Management Programme (SSMP) – promoted simple and climate smart agricultural technologies in mid-hill regions of Nepal. Effect of these technologies in improving soil fertility and farm productivity and income is described in the attached file. Besides, to what extent these technologies were successful in reducing women’s workload and its ultimate effect in sharing workload between men and women is also mentioned with simple study in later part of the attached file.

This paper was shared in national conference on climate smart agriculture organized by Ministry of Agriculture Development in August 2016 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Dear organizers,

thanks for this excellent discussion and in-depth inputs on this topic. I would like to share some insights from the work of the four UN agencies, UN Women, FAO, IFAD and WFP on the Rural Women Economic Empowerment in Kyrgyzstan. It is a unique joint programme of the four agencies, which aims to address the multiple challenges faced by rural women in an integrated manner. The programme brings together expertise of the four UN agencies, and has proven to be effective in providing an integrated response to the various aspects of rural women's empowerment. Specifically, an external evaluation has found the programme to be a flagship joint programme due to a single entry point, through which the UN agencies have provided a single integrated development assistance to the same group of beneficiaries. This has accelerated internal empowerment process, allowed the rural women to build on the increased economic agency to internalize leadership skills, practice them at the level of their households and communities. Evaluation has also confirmed transformative changes taking place in rural women's lives due to the multidimensional approach taken in the joint programme, which included access to productive assets, business skills, access to revolving funds, institutionalization of women's groups through establishment of women's cooperatives, access to processing technologies for moving women's groups up along the value chains for increased value added and higher negotiation powers, capacity building for women's better leadership, participation and influence on local gender-responsive development planning, service provision and decision-making processes. Finally,the programme has allowed to bring the voice of rural women to the national level policy debates, policy formulation and legislative processes. 

The evaluation also called for continued collaboration focusing on the rural women in the country. The programme in Kyrgyzstan has established effective coordination mechanism, whereby it not only benefitted rural women but also allowed cross fertilization of approaches used by UN agencies, shared knowledge production in the interventions with the highest transformative effect on the rural women. While the focus so far has been on mobilizing the most vulnerable groups of rural women, there is a need to continue institutional support to women entrepreneurs supported through the programme, and women's cooperatives. Short term and funding challenges of the programme created challenges for upscaling of these approaches on a wider scope and to engage in longer-term policy discussions. It is great to see that many inputs recognize the importance of addressing sexual and reproductive rights of rural women. Unfortunately, due to funding limitations, these issues have not been a priority for the joint programme, and have only be partly covered through partnership with other UN agencies. However, upon reflection we see that empowering rural women to exercise reproductive rights is important for transformation of their lives. In addition there is a need to engage in policy discussions at both local and national levels to recognize, redistribute and reduce the care burden on young rural women. There is an urgent need to engage in macroeconomic policy discussions, which go beyond mere support to women's enterpreneurship, but integrate and focus macroeconomic policies on creating environment for the empowerment of rural women. Rural women tend to concentrate in informal employment sector without social security and pension support. Fiscal, monetary and trade policies should be formulated with a focus on creating better opportunities for rural women. Discussions around government spending should be informed by the exsiting research on the huge potential of investing in the care economy and early childhood development. This is unfortunately not possible within a short timeframe and limited funding of the joint programme. It also requires building of local research and expertise in policy formulation from gender perspective.

Finally, in line with the 'leaving noone behind' principle it is important to understand that rural women are not a homogenous group, and contains groups with multiple forms of discrimination, including single mothers, female-headed households, women with disabilities, women with children with disabilities, women from ethnic and religious minority groups, young women, women of non-traditional sexual orientation, etc. It is important to ensure that these groups have equal opportunity to benefit from the government policies and development assistance.