April 2003
3-7 March 2003
Kathmandu, Nepal
The resource paper was presented for Seminar on Role of Women in Sustainable Rural Development which was held 3-7 March 2003 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The seminar was organised by Asian Productivity Organisation.
In the Asia and Pacific region the role of women in sustainable rural development is a critical one to achieve the millennium goals set by the UN. A world with fewer people living in poverty and greater levels of food security can be achieved only through realising the goal of empowering women. The United Nations Millennium Declaration resolves "to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable" (United Nations, 2000)1. The policy and institutional environment should be supportive of women in order to recognise the significance of their contribution and the ability to realise empowerment through their own skills and capacity.
An important challenge facing the agriculture and rural development sectors arises from a fundamental concern, the need to balance the dual objectives of development by ensuring adequate livelihood for the rural communities while protecting the resource base to sustain the future livelihoods. Hence the purpose of rural development interventions can be viewed as "sustenance and sustainability." Throughout the region, rural women have an important role in ensuring "sustenance and sustainability" in family and rural economy. Currently, women's contribution in the Asian region parallels or, in certain regions, exceeds that of men. In the Asia region, those countries with a large portion of the population dependent on agriculture for livelihood, also record a high participation rate for women in agriculture. Women achieve key labour roles primarily as unpaid workers for the family. In this way, they contribute consistently and considerably to the family's sustainable sustenance (United Nations, 1995).2 Yet the situation of women's access to resources as stakeholders in the family and in the rural economy is disappointing and their work often goes under-rewarded. The lack of recognition for women's unpaid work in national statistics undermines the policy and institutional approaches that would improve the productivity of women and, thus, the welfare of the family.
The UN conferences and conventions provide the impetus for national policies for the advancement of women. The UN Conventions and Global Conferences that resulted in the Plans of Action have highlighted the biases against women and the persisting gender disparities that undermine the progress towards shared prosperity among men and women. These could be grouped into two major categories, namely those with explicit thematic focus on the advancement of women and those that address specific development aspects that incorporate themes of advancement of women. In the former group the key conventions are UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women-1979 and the Beijing Platform for Action-1996, which serves as the foundation for National Policies for the Advancement of Women and the Beijing Platform for Action. Over the last 27 years, the approach to address the advancement of women has evolved from women in development interventions to the empowerment of women and gender mainstreaming strategies. The major conferences in the latter group were the Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 1992-Rio, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 1994-Cairo, the World Summit for Social Development- 1995-Copenhagen, the World Food Summit 1996-Rome and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002-Johannesburg. Within global Development Agencies, UN commitment for the advancement of women in rural economies and communities is translated to institutional gender mainstreaming policies and guidelines. Institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Asian Development Banks have institutional polices and strategies for gender mainstreaming in development assistance in technical sectors such as agriculture and rural development. There are national agencies for the advancement of women in every country across the region and the favoured mode for integration within technical line ministries for agriculture and rural development was establishing focal units or focal persons.
Though the objective was appropriate and the conferences generate recommendations for gender equality and advancement of rural women, many follow up conferences to the major events suggest that, although progress has been made, the achievements are far less than desired to improve the status of rural women. The task of advancement of rural women has faltered due to lack of an effective implementation process, inter-agency collaboration within countries and among development agencies and inadequate resources (human, service infrastructure and financial resources) to address the rural problems in general and that of rural women in particular. To date, the integrative function by the units for the advancement of women or the focal persons within technical line ministries has not been very effective. The basic reasons can be identified as: a) lack of capacity to undertake sustainable gender equality impact oriented actions; b) firm boundaries of responsibilities defined for the various technical agencies; c) control of ministerial agenda by traditional technical specialists who do not focus on people centred approaches to technical problems; d) lack of institutional culture of interagency and multi-disciplinary collaboration; e) disproportionate emphasis on external support to focus on rural aeas within sector specific development and f) situation is further exacerbated through lack of sound shared knowledge of the respective technical areas of responsibilities.
There are many national level realities that impede the advancement of rural women and these should be addressed explicitly through improved interaction among the technical ministries and the agencies for the advancement of women. Various national level realities and the associated strategies are elaborated in this paper. The proposed strategies for reform are: Greater attention to be paid to rural sector development and integration of rural women as agents of change and empowerment; The dispelling of current economic and social misconceptions of cost and cultural disruptions associated with gender equality objectives; Allocation of increased national resources for women's ministries and allocation of funds for gender considerations in sector development plans; Increase efforts for capacity building in order to develop shared knowledge and interagency dialogue and collaboration; Firm positions to be taken by global agencies' in their negotiations regarding the inclusion of gender equality considerations in sector specific assistance; Actions should be directed to improve the understanding and commitment at local government level to implement UN Conventions and National Policies on gender equality and empowerment of women; The enlistment of civil society organizations and community based organizations to educate and monitor at local level for gender responsive implementation of policies and programmes; and the creation by national and international agencies of modalities which would provide space for rural women's articulation and integration of their concerns in policies and programmes.
The strategies presented here are broad areas of reform-oriented actions to be generic for various countries across the Asia and Pacific region. Yet the actual form and substance of the proposed actions should reflect the specific national situation regarding resources, institutions and capacities. Though the global agencies have recognised the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of rural women for rural development policies and programmes, a greater responsibility must be taken by the countries themselves in order to fully take advantage of these and undertake actions to overcome ground level barriers to promote the role of rural women.
1United Nations. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly 55/2. United Nations Millennium Declaration. General Assembly. Fifty-Fifth session. September.2000.
2United Nations: The World's Women 1995: Trends and Statistics. Social Statistics and Indicators. United Nations: New York. 1995.
For more information, contact: Revathi.Balakrishnan@fao.org
