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This brochure presents FAO's sustained and consistent work towards gender equality and the empowerment of rural women, which are at the core of the Organization's efforts to end hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty. FAO recognizes the potential of rural women and men in achieving food security and improving nutrition and is committed to working with partners and strengthening its efforts to eliminate the gender inequalities that undermine the performance of the agriculture sector. Also available in Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian. 

This one-lesson course considers the gender dimension of rural migration. As men and women experience migration differently, to reduce the vulnerability and empower both rural women migrants and women who stay behind, it is essential to integrate gender into policies and programmes on migration and rural development.

This course focuses on SDG Indicator 5.a.2 which assesses women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control. The course describes the indicator, explains its rationale and provides countries with step-by-step guidance for conducting the assessment.

This guidance note was developed to support development and humanitarian practitioners in carrying out a gender-sensitive vulnerability assessment, in order to identify and address the main sources of vulnerability of men and women in the agriculture sector. The note describes what are the main constraints that male and female farmers face in the agriculture sector, with a focus on climate change. It also provides an overview of available sources and methodologies to collect and analyze sex-disaggregated data. The specific aspects of climate change and targeted outcomes for men and women can vary widely across diverse areas, so this note discusses [...]

FAO’s Gender and Rural Advisory Services Assessment Tool (GRAST)  is designed to support providers of rural advisory services in their efforts to develop gender-sensitive programmes. By undertaking a gender assessment of rural advisory services at policy, organizational and individual levels, GRAST provides entry points for improving the gender-responsiveness of the design and delivery of advisory services in a truly transformative manner. Its ultimate objective is to ensure that rural advisory services respond to the needs and priorities of both rural women and men and that, as a consequence, they can equally access to and benefit from these services.   

This Guide promotes a people-centred gender approach towards increasing and improving the provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner while reducing rural poverty in different priority areas of FAO’s work. This includes gender equality, territorial development, legal aspects and natural resources management.

The Partnership note aims at providing readers with an overview of the work carried out by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – one of the largest organizations of informal workers in the world– in bolstering financial inclusion for poor women, both in India (where SEWA is based) and abroad. The four-decade experience that SEWA can boast in providing financial services to poor women around the world - together with the unique financial innovations that the organization has developed through trial-and-error for its members - make SEWA an extremely interesting case study within the domain of development finance.

Many social protection programmes, including cash transfers, public works programmes and asset transfers, target women as main beneficiaries or recipients of benefits. Extending social protection to rural populations has great potential for fostering rural women’s economic empowerment. However, to tap into this potential, more needs to be done. There is much scope for making social protection policies and programmes more gender sensitive and for better aligning them with agricultural and rural development policies to help address gender inequalities. Recognizing this potential and capitalizing on existing evidence, FAO seeks to enhance the contribution of social protection to gender equality and women’s empowerment [...]

Many social protection programmes, including cash transfers, public works programmes and asset transfers, target women as main beneficiaries or recipients of benefits. Extending social protection to rural populations has great potential for fostering rural women’s economic empowerment. However, to tap into this potential, more needs to be done. There is much scope for making social protection policies and programmes more gender sensitive and for better aligning them with agricultural and rural development policies to help address gender inequalities. Recognizing this potential and capitalizing on existing evidence, FAO seeks to enhance the contribution of social protection to gender equality and women’s empowerment [...]

Many social protection programmes, including cash transfers, public works programmes and asset transfers, target women as main beneficiaries or recipients of benefits. Extending social protection to rural populations has great potential for fostering rural women’s economic empowerment. However, to tap into this potential, more needs to be done. There is much scope for making social protection policies and programmes more gender sensitive and for better aligning them with agricultural and rural development policies to help address gender inequalities. Recognizing this potential and capitalizing on existing evidence, FAO seeks to enhance the contribution of social protection to gender equality and women’s empowerment [...]