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THEME: Competition and public recognition encourage mass participation of women in development initiatives that respond to their needs.
The Shuangxue Shuangbi (Double Knowledge – Double Merit) campaign in China is a success story with strategic lessons. The campaign was launched in 1989, and IFAD was among the international agencies involved. The campaign’s objective was to increase rural women’s knowledge and skills. Its strategy relied heavily on competition and public recognition of achievement. The goal was to provide women with access to knowledge and skills that would allow them to use land more effectively and to expand both their on-farm and off-farm income-generating activities. Competition was set up among individual women and groups of women.
The campaign was a large-scale inter-sectoral effort. The All-China Women’s Federation (which dates back to 1949) played a catalytic role in bringing a wide range of training courses to rural women, in line with their expressed needs. The Women’s Federation is a mass organization of women workers, both urban and rural, intellectuals and illiterates. Its goals include equality between men and women and the acquisition by women of the knowledge and technical skills that will enable them to participate more fully in increasing productivity.
Various government ministries and sectors were also involved in the campaign. The State Education Commission provided materials and teachers to increase literacy and improve practical knowledge. Agricultural technicians from the Ministry of Agriculture gave lectures and demonstrations to village women on adaptive technologies. When women had the necessary skills, the Agricultural Bank of China extended credit to them for establishing their income-generating activities.
Well over 100 million women have participated since the campaign started. Tens of millions have become literate. Almost 100 million have received technical training in a variety of technologies. Outstanding women have been recognized as ‘pioneers’, at both the provincial and national levels. Tens of thousands of rural women who have shown particular motivation have received the status and title of ‘farmer technicians’. This honour has designated them to act as intermediaries between professional extension workers and their neighbours. Women in all provinces have acquired new skills and knowledge, which has increased their production and incomes. The income increases have resulted from their: adopting new breeds of chickens or rabbits; learning how to grow new kinds of livestock fodder, such as green duckweed; taking up new crops such as cotton; and adopting new erosion-control measures. Equally important, the campaign encouraged women to ignore female stereotypes and avoid traditional economic straightjackets. For example, according to the Women’s Federation, more than 10 million rural women became directly involved in marketing commodities.
The lesson of the campaign is not its success, but the reasons for its success. These include the well-coordinated nature of the effort, its basis in competition and social recognition, which was already understood by women all over China, and its responsiveness to peoples’ needs. In most situations, villagers identified their needs or skill requirements first. Only then were expert technicians invited to give training and demonstrations. Social support by village heads and women leaders was also important in creating an enabling environment for special effort and achievement. This was not a dry learning exercise but an exciting learning competition.
Adapted from:
IFAD. 1995. The Status of Rural Women in China. Rome: IFAD. (Other sources are as cited in this publication.)
