Women empowerment is key to fighting hunger and poverty

Accra Oct. 24, GNA - Mr. Serge Nakouzi, FAO Deputy Regional Representative for Africa on Tuesday observed that when rural women are empowered with resources, equipped with skills, and decent jobs, they become key driving forces in the fight against hunger and poverty.

“Therefore, investing in rural women is imperative for raising agricultural productivity, eradicating hunger and malnutrition and reducing rural poverty towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals”,  he suggested.

Addressing a three-day, FAO supported African Union Commission Gender and Agenda 2063 Consultative Meeting with Rural Women, in Accra, he emphasized that rural women are central to the FAO’s mandate to achieve food security for all saying “this meeting clearly exemplifies the unique and very special relationship between the African Union Commission and the FAO in serving rural women who feed Africa.

Mr. Nakouzi noted that the FAO’s policy on gender equality adopted in 2012 aims at advancing the equality of voice, agency and access to resources and service between woman and men in sustainable production and rural development.

Ghana’s Deputy Minister for  Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gifty Twum-Ampofo, urged stakeholders in the empowerment of rural women to enhance the role of women in agriculture and development by addressing issues of maternal health, land tenure and credit facilities.

“What women need is not micro support rather increase mechanization, technological innovation, education and skills development the women, intensify their financial inclusion in agribusiness and empower them with knowledge and skills to use modern technologies in agribusiness and agricultural value chains”, she added. 

On her part, Bernadette Lahai, Vice President of the Pan African Parliament underlined the need for women to women participate equally with men as decision makers in rural institutions in shaping laws, policies and programmes, women and men have equal access to and control over decent employment and , land and other productive resources.

“In the end we expect to achieve the collective goal of ownership of the new strategy, harmonization of existing gender equality and women's empowerment strategies of the AUC and other AU organs; monitoring and tracking tools to assess progress of implementation on an annual basis developed, detailed action plan generated for implementation, and capacity required to successfully implement the new strategy as well as backstopping and support required by the various stakeholders and the AUC for implementation identified, Lahai said.

Defining priority intervention areas in empowering rural women

The consultative meeting with rural women will be used to present a draft gender strategy, ascertain the capacity needs of different Regional Economic Communities (RECs) organs and stakeholders in operationalizing the strategy, propose monitoring tools for the Implementation of the strategy, propose ways of harmonizing the strategy with that of different RECs and how to popularize the strategy to the African citizens online and through IEC materials.

The Meeting would also define priority intervention areas for the Africa Union (AU) in empowering rural women in food security and nutrition, agri-food systems and value chain and management of natural resources in the context of climate change.

Adopted in January 2015, by the Africa Union, Agenda 2063 is both a Vision and an Action Plan, which call for action to all segments of African society to work together to build a prosperous and united Africa based on shared values and a common destiny within the next 50 years.

Among the aspirations outlined in the Agenda are a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development, an integrated continent, politically united and based on the ideals of Pan-Africanism and the vision of Africa’s Renaissance, an Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law, a peaceful and secure Africa, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children.

What needs now to be done  are sustaining the momentum, through continuous recognition of the important role of rural women, their organizations and networks in furthering the work of AU, call for sustained political will, through increased budgetary allocations, human and institutional capacity strengthening and enhancing the legal and policy frameworks.

Also, environment and infrastructure, increase investments in high impact actions with clear timelines, strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, foster cross fertilization through south-south exchange, building residence of rural women to climate change and other shocks among others.

Participants to the consultative meeting includes rural women and their organizations and networks, and key participants from Organs, RECs, Member States, civil society, Private Sector, academia and research institutions and media.

GNA

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