October 2002
by Sissel Ekaas, Director
FAO Gender and Population Division
This was the keynote address delivered at the Third World Congress of Rural Women in Madrid, Spain, 2-4 October 2002
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Your Majesty,
Distinguished Chairperson, Mrs. Dancausa Treviņo
Distinguished Ministers,
UN colleagues,
Women farmers and representatives,
Gentle ladies and Gentlemen,
Human dignity is indivisible, according to the political declaration adopted a month ago at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Poverty and hunger are enemies of human dignity and still far too prevalent on our planet at the start of this new millennium. Women are not only the primary victims of hunger and poverty; they are also crucial partners in combating these problems and achieving global food security. As the familiar Chinese proverb goes: "women hold up half the sky". In the fight against hunger and poverty, and for food security for their families, communities and nations, rural women most certainly hold up the heavier half of the sky. This point was brought home to me last August when travelling in the Asian countryside I noticed road signs reading "men at work" only to discover that the road workers were all women!
I am delighted and greatly honoured to be here with you this morning and to address you on behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). At the outset, may I present my compliments to Your Majesty, Doņa Sofia, and other organizers of this important Congress, in particular the Institute for Women, and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and thank you for the kind invitation and warm hospitality extended to me.
Strength lies in diversity - both in cultural and biological terms. Let us build on the diversity present here, learn from each other and forge partnerships to collectively support rural women, in their various capacities as farmers, rural entrepreneurs and agricultural wage-workers. They are the front-line soldiers in the battle for global food security.
The overall theme for this opening segment is "Rural Women in the Global Village". I wish I could say with some conviction that the global village has become a kinder place to rural women in the four years since we last met in Washington D.C. Certainly, the major trend of recent years is the movement towards international integration. Globalisation has become a 'catchall term' used to refer to the various phenomena making up this integrative process - such as: open trade among countries, increased flow of capital across borders, changes in demand for workers and skills, and in ways and means of production. It also refers to a more rapid diffusion of information and technology, new forms of governance and the emergence of a global civil society. While globalization may not be new, the complexity and the pace of change have increased.
The transformations brought about by globalization have had a mixed impact on regions, countries, rural and urban households and individuals. New opportunities have benefited certain social groups and, at the same time, intensified the social exclusion and marginalisation of others. These impacts need to be assessed both in terms of short-term and long-term gains and losses. And the criteria for assessment should not only be economic ones. For instance, trade liberalization policies must be assessed in terms of whether they actually contribute to human development and remove social inequities, reduce poverty and hunger, protect human rights, protect the environment, and foster democratic governance. Emerging evidence gives reason to worry that, rather than bridging and minimizing the rural-urban divide, social inequities, and gender inequalities, the forces of globalization, unless managed properly, may exacerbate these.
As I am sure you are aware, within the context of agriculture, liberalization of trade and markets for food and other agricultural products tend to favour economies of scale, such as large-scale commercial farming, and export cash cropping over household subsistence production. Moreover, there is an increasing privatization of resources and services in the agricultural and rural sector, while publicly sponsored services such as training and extension, and investment in rural infrastructure, are scaled down due to reduced public sector spending.
Other changes affecting rural communities include the intensification and increased flexibility of international and internal labour movements, wider use of information and communication technologies as a source of market information and transactions, and for dissemination of information on new agricultural technologies.
Finally, the impacts of globalisation have forced many rural households to diversify their sources of livelihood, as they are no longer able to support themselves exclusively by land-based activities. The growth in rural non-farm economic activities is remarkable. So, in the context of globalization, food security will be determined increasingly by access to food through cash income, since traditional subsistence agriculture may not be sufficient to serve the family's food needs.
It is essential to understand both gender- and class- differentiated impacts and how to maximize the benefits and minimize the adverse effects of change upon women (and men) in various contexts. Due to persistent gender inequalities and discrimination, women can be affected negatively by globalisation processes to a greater extent than men - this is particularly relevant to women in rural communities.
Research in this field points to certain factors that determine why this is so: (i) the role women play in traditional and subsistence production (ii) the extent to which they are able to take advantage of economic diversification and employment opportunities; iii) their relative disadvantage in access to productive assets; iv) their generally lower education and skills adapted to emerging opportunities; and v) the drudgery of domestic work in the absence of appropriate labour-saving and affordable technologies; and vi) limited availability of basic services of water, sanitation and health.
In fact, the research literature over the past three decades clearly documents that the cultivation of cash crops and the creation of wage labour have been possible, because women's labour supplemented male labour within the household and took on labour- intensive tasks of cash crop farming. Despite this, women's contributions to the household and national economy through their multiple tasks continue to be undervalued and invisible in most national statistics, and as a result, in agricultural and rural development policies, programmes and investment schemes.
Despite the recent trend towards livelihood diversification, most rural households still depend upon land-based production and natural resources for subsistence. Since land and land-based resources are primary livelihood resources, it is critical that women have access to, control and ownership of land. Access to this primary resource determines access to other resources and benefits, such as extension services, credit and membership in farmers' organizations.
Globally, with variations in practice among countries, rural women continue to be deprived of equal legal rights to land and inadequate implementation of existing legislation, Persistent gender-based inequalities in this area due to social, cultural and economic factors, not only hinder women's ability to take advantage of new opportunities created by trade liberalization. Such discrimination also constrains their incentive to invest precious time and resources in land conservation and new technology. In the final analysis, both individual productivity and national export capacity suffer.
It is important to keep in mind that globalisation is also accompanied by an emerging diversity of household types and changes in the division of labour and decision-making relations within the household. As a result of male migration, family dis-integration, wars and conflicts, and HIV/AIDS, an increasing number of rural households are headed by women and even orphaned children. Furthermore, progressive rural ageing is manifesting itself in several sub-regions, with elderly women as head of households and sometimes taking care of several grandchildren.
As a result, the traditional patterns of gender-based roles in rural areas have been challenged, as women acquire the decision-making power relating to farm management, and the responsibility for the food security and well-being of the members of her household. It may sound like a step in the right direction; however, we must not overlook the fact that female-headed households are often faced with greater obstacles than male-headed households. Their lower economic and social status, coupled with labour or time constraints, and lack of cash to hire additional labour, may force them to adopt strategies such as reducing the total area under cultivation, less diversified cropping patterns, and switching to less labour-intensive, but perhaps also less nutritious, crops.
Rural development issues generally speaking and rural women's issues in particular, do not have the priority and visibility on the agenda of the United Nations that they deserve. In the context of rapid urbanization and a general lack of media interest in agriculture and rural development issues, stronger efforts are needed to actively promote the interests of rural areas, where the majority of the world's population and of the world's poor and hungry still lives. We need to counter what I perceive as a growing urban bias within the United Nations and international development agencies and financial institutions, as evidenced by the decreasing investments in agriculture, both from international and national sources.
Fortunately, there are a number of international instruments that can be used in lobbying governments and other development partners to create and modify policies, laws, programmes and projects in support of the empowerment of rural women and gender equality in agriculture and rural development.
As many of you already know, the noble goal of food for all is the guiding principle for FAO's work. It is the only specialized technical agency of the United Nations with a specific rural focus. As such, the Organization has worked diligently, since its inception in the pursuit of food security, to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, capacity building for rural enterprises, and improved nutrition. Moreover, it has tirelessly advocated within the United Nations and the larger international development community for more attention and support to rural areas.
Over the past five decades, our understanding and admiration for the multiple roles rural women play throughout the entire food chain has grown. We now know that rural women and men have different and complementary roles in guaranteeing food security at household and community levels. In its current work, FAO addresses rural women's concerns in their various roles in farming, forestry, and fisheries, as well as within the household from a comprehensive analysis of gender relations.
FAO's efforts to institutionalise attention to gender issues in all programme and project activities were boosted by the adoption in November 2001 of a new corporate Gender and Development Plan of Action 2002-2007 linked to the corporate Medium-Term Plan.
In pursuit of FAO's mission to help build a food-secure world, the Plan specifically aims at promoting gender equality in access to resources, broadly defined as food, natural resources, agricultural support services, decision-making, and employment opportunities. The full text of the Plan has been posted on our website in various languages (www.fao.org).
Let me give you a few examples of the type of activities we have launched in support of the implementation of the Plan in various regions:
At the 1996 World Food Summit, leaders of 185 countries gathered in Rome and acknowledged rural women's fundamental contribution to food security, particularly in rural areas of developing countries, and the need to ensure equal access to resources and to opportunities for women and men in agriculture and rural development. This message was reinforced, in June of this year, at the five-year review of the World Food Summit - an important milestone in the fight against hunger.
I am pleased to bring to your attention that the WFS: fyl Declaration specifically calls for the promotion of equal access for women and men to food, water, land, credit and technology - that will also help generate income and create employment opportunities for the poor. Member States reaffirmed the need to assure gender equality and to support the empowerment of women, recognising the continuing and vital role of women in agriculture, nutrition and food security. They also stressed the need to integrate a gender perspective in all aspects of food security and to adopt measures to ensure that the work of rural women is recognised and valued in order to enhance their economic security and their access to and control over resources and benefits.
FAO's Gender and Population Division organised a well-attended side-event to the WFS: fyl on 'Rural Women: crucial partners in the fight against hunger and poverty'. The aim was to enhance the visibility, recognition and support for the important role and contributions of rural women in achieving the targets of the World Food Summit and forge a Message from Rome to the Johannesburg Summit in support of Rural Women.
Our main message was clear: "to enhance the status of rural women and promote gender equality in agriculture and rural development, actions are needed in two key areas: i) the equal access to and control of natural resources; and ii) the empowerment and full participation of rural women as agents for change in policy making at all levels and throughout development activities.
More specifically, the meeting called for:
The full text of this Message and other material from this side-event can be accessed at the FAO website.
Our message was echoed in the World Summit on Sustainable Development, where key demands from major stakeholder groups focused on equitable access for women to natural and productive resources, as well as the right of women and girls to inherit property. The WSSD political declaration and Plan of Implementation called for enhancing the participation of women at all levels and in all aspects of rural development, agriculture, nutrition and food security, and with more specific gender-sensitive provisions in such critical areas as energy and water as well as the strengthening of national and regional statistical and information bases including sex-disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators. I am pleased to note that the road from Rio to Johannesburg went via Rome, reinforcing the interdependence of the UN Millennium Declaration goals of reducing hunger and poverty by half by 2015.
At FAO, we recognise that we cannot solve the problem of food security alone and, if we are to make any progress, we must rely on the cooperation and broad-based participation of all stakeholders - women, men, young and old. In fact, the main strategy for FAO to achieve the World Food Summit goal, as well as in the follow-up to the WSSD, will be to engage in broad partnerships, liaising closely with the international, regional, national and local communities engaged in achieving the goal of food security, and in combining valuable local and indigenous knowledge with new, innovative technologies and practices. One such partnership initiative launched during the preparations for the WSSD, and which will be instrumental in the follow-up to the Summit, is the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) initiative, which is an umbrella alliance of major stakeholder groups working together for a common purpose.
Farmers' groups and associations, in particular rural women and men, play a crucial role for the fulfillment of FAO's mandate. Effective collaboration among stakeholders, including farmers, extension workers, researchers, local authorities and the private sector, have been instrumental in ensuring the successful uptake of sustainable land and water management practices.
FAO has also drawn up an Anti-Hunger Programme that focusses on five priority areas: i) agricultural productivity in poor communities; ii) development and conservation of natural resources; iii) expansion of rural infrastructure and market access; iv) generation and dissemination of knowledge; v) access to food for the most needy.
Other FAO partnership initiatives are:
As was loudly articulated by the global nongovernmental movement present both in Seattle and in Johannesburg, transformation through globalization should be for prosperity with social equity and the intellectual property rights of farmers and communities must be safeguarded. Until fair global arrangements are found for agricultural trade and agricultural subsidies, the final verdict on globalisation will be out for the 1.2 billion poor and some 800 million hungry on this planet. One important milestone for all of us to keep a vigilant eye on will be next year's meeting in Cancun, Mexico of the World Trade Organization.
I am personally convinced that agricultural productivity will never reach optimal levels, unless we invest in and empower women farmers and provide them the opportunities and the means to maximise their inputs for the benefit of themselves, their families and society as a whole. To achieve this, we need a winning formula of political will and commitment of resources. Agricultural development policies still do not reflect the needs of women adequately and if they are incorporated, they often fail to be translated into practice.
Gender inequalities and social inequities remain a significant barrier to reaching the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of poor and hungry by 2015, not to mention the even more important goal of food for all in the foreseeable future. If ever there was a time for giving real meaning to the concept of political will, it is now, at the beginning of this new millennium- this is not only a moral imperative; it is also an economic necessity to usher in the global economic prosperity with social equity that so many millions crave for and deserve as basic human rights.
Thank you for your attention.
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