• Specific measures need to be put in place, at national and local levels, to advocate for women’s equal access to technologies and services and integrate the gender dimensions in related national policies and strategies.
• Foster policy dialogue and exchange amongst relevant stakeholders, strengthening the capacities of policy-makers to analyze labour- and technology-related data (sex-disaggregated), and integrate gender priorities in policies and strategies with a technology component (including policies governing farmers’ access to assets and services, such as agricultural mechanization, extension, input subsidy, cooperatives and telecommunications).
• Develop and disseminate gender-transformative interventions and approaches to tackle behavioural change and promote household and community dialogue. This will help to achieve joint decision-making and sharing of tasks between men and women.
• Support dialogue between technology producers and farmers, and strengthen the capacities of technology service providers to reach women (such as financial, insurance, vet and pricing apps).
• Explore formal and informal credit, insurance and saving products for women to facilitate their access to innovative and labour-saving technologies and practices.
• Facilitate women’s participation in producer organizations, by reviewing entrance regulations and protecting their products or by-products, and in saving and credit cooperatives, and in farmer field schools so they can benefit from offered credit schemes, mechanization and training.
• Design women-specific interventions, combining asset distribution with technology provision and training. This has proved efficient for income generation, environmental impact and time saving.

FAO hosts the Technologies and Practices for Small Agricultural Producers (TECA), a dedicated platform that includes over 100 labour-saving and innovative technologies and practices adopted by many countries and that organizes share fairs on these technologies, bringing together policy-makers, planners, researchers, rural people, civil society organizations and the private sector.

FAO is working to build the knowledge base and strengthen the capacities of all stakeholders and to promote good practices that improve rural women’s access to information, technologies and markets.  

Rural radio is the most popular media tool in Africa, particularly in isolated areas and amongst rural women. As such, FAO Dimitra Clubs, which are informal groups of rural women, men and young people that come together to discuss common challenges and take collective action to address them, equip their members with wind-up and solar-powered radios, often paired with mobile phones connected in a fleet. As part of the process, community radio stations are used to relay information, broadcast debates on air and facilitate exchange, capitalization of good practices and networking. The added value of this approach is the combined use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with gender-transformative and community-driven processes, which has been shown to enable rural women’s empowerment, social inclusion and improved dialogue.

The FAO-Thiaroye fish processing technique, developed with the Senegal National Training Centre for Fisheries and Aquaculture Technicians is a simple but efficient alternative to traditional fish smoking, which has been broadly disseminated throughout Africa and Asia. It was identified as a labour-saving technology with a high potential for economic empowerment. Its benefits for women have proven to be numerous, such as a healthier work environment, better quality products, extra time to attend literacy classes and improved income.   

A stream of work was built on the nexus between gender and ICTs to unlock the full potential of ICTs for rural women in accessing information, technologies and markets. This led to the publications Gender and ICTs: Mainstreaming gender in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and rural development and Investing in information and communication technologies to reach gender equality and empower rural women. FAO also produced the policy brief Fostering the uptake of labour-saving technologies – How to develop effective strategies to benefit rural women; the paper Running out of Time and the information brief Addressing women’s work burden – key issues, promising solutions and way forward to raise awareness and the commitment towards women’s empowerment.

• FAO. 2012. Gender and equity issues in liquid biofuels production. Minimizing the risks to maximize the opportunities.
• FAO. 2013 Agricultural Mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa Guidelines for preparing a strategy.
• FAO. 2015. Ensuring safe access to energy for all.
• FAO. 2015. Running out of time. The reduction of women’s work burden in agricultural production.
• FAO. 2016 Agricultural mechanization. A key input for sub-Saharan African smallholders.
• FAO. 2016. Information Brief: Addressing women’s work burden. Key issues, promising solutions and way forward.
• FAO. 2016. Meeting fuel and energy needs in protracted crisis. The SAFE approach.
• FAO. 2017. Employment, work and time use in agricultural contexts: what data do we need for gender analysis?.
• FAO. 2018. Gender-sensitive labour-saving technology. Drum seeder: saving time, efforts and money. A case study from the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
• FAO. 2018. Gender and ICTs – Mainstreaming gender in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and rural development. Rome, FAO.
• FAO. 2018. Good Practice: FAO Dimitra Clubs. ICTs as drivers of rural women’s empowerment.
• FAO. 2018. Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization:  A Framework for Africa.
• FAO. 2019. Fostering the Uptake of Labour-saving technologies – how to develop effective strategies to benefit rural women.
• FAO. 2019. Investing in information and communication technologies to reach gender equality and empower rural women. Rome.