Colleagues,

It is a pleasure to welcome you to our very own IFAD event in recognition of International Women’s day.

As you know, the official Women’s Day was yesterday, when we joined colleagues from FAO and WFP for a public celebration, but it is fitting that we are having our own event on a separate day because – although international days play a crucial role in drawing world attention to important issues – we must remain focused on these issues each and every day of the week, and not just on the official day.

At IFAD we have a duty to recognize the contributions that women make and to remove the obstacles they face. This applies equally to our work in the field and to our work here at headquarters in Rome.

As I have said before, IFAD has long recognized that there will be no substantial progress in poverty reduction and food security unless we address the limits that are imposed on women.

It is said that women are the backbone of society. This is particularly true of rural societies, where women are often responsible for farming and earning cash as well as extra chores such as gathering firewood, collecting water, washing clothing and tending to children and the elderly. As a result, women frequently work 16 hours a day – far longer than most men.

We see, time and time again in our work, that when women have the means to increase their income they share the benefits with the family. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, we supported a programme that helped poor rural women buy dairy goats. The programme also provided training and access to low cost technologies to process the milk and the wool.

The women who participated in the programme earned more money. They also saved more time thanks to more efficient butter churns and cream separators that helped them prepare butter and yoghurt. Not only did the women benefit, but also family health and nutrition improved as the women’s incomes increased.

A recent evaluation of IFAD’s performance on gender equality and women’s empowerment found that we had improved – particularly in our new projects – but that we can still do better.

It also notes that, because of our mandate and our focus on rural development, IFAD could become a leader in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In doing better, we must build on what we are already doing and do it better and do it more.

Along with delivering on the gender evaluation, we are continuing to implement our four commitments under the MDG-3 Torch.  As I said at the Town Hall meeting in October last year – when we assess the progress on these commitments – all IFAD divisions must continue their plans of work under the Torch initiative, in other words, to “do something extra”.

Recently the Government of Denmark expressed its appreciation of IFAD’s strong and visible engagement in this campaign. They also informed us that, by this summer, all torchbearers will be asked to report on their progress. I will be counting on you all to have a good story to tell by then!

One of our commitments is that, by the end of this year, we will develop a policy and results framework on gender equality and women's empowerment, to be submitted to our Executive Board.

We are aware that change starts at home. We can’t tell people how to create conditions for gender equality and empowerment in developing countries unless we are doing the same at home.

I am pleased to say that we have been making steady progress in our efforts to achieve gender balance in employment at IFAD.

IFAD now ranks ninth out of 30 agencies across the UN system when it comes to gender parity. Women account for 47 per cent of all professional staff. Indeed, IFAD has reached gender parity at all levels of General Service staff and at the P2, P3 and D2 and above levels.  

But we can still do better. Women professionals tend to cluster at the lower grades. At the P3 level, 72 per cent are women, but at the P5 level the proportion drops to 29 per cent. But our performance improves again at the D2 and above levels.

And we must also be aware that closing the gender gap means having a workplace culture that is responsive to both women’s and men’s needs. Without this, we will still be able to recruit talented people, but we will not be able to keep them.

It is not enough simply to have jobs open to both genders. To have an efficient, effective, 21st century workplace, we must create the conditions where jobs can be done successfully by women and men alike, and this means acknowledging and addressing the issues that all people, but particularly women, face in their working lives. 

Rome, 9 March 2011