Enhanced participation of women in development: an enabling environment for achieving gender equality and the advancement of women Madam Chairperson, It is my pleasure to address this Commission on behalf of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The fiftieth session of the Commission is a historic moment and allows us look back at 60 years of global commitment to gender equality and the way this Commission shaped women’s progress worldwide. From Mexico to Copenhagen and from Nairobi to Beijing, the Commission has brought Governments and civil society together and acted as a catalyst for defining the agenda for the advancement of women. The situation and status of rural women has always been of great concern. The Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies in 1985 alerted us that poverty and landlessness among rural women would increase significantly by the year 2000 (para 175) and recommended to redirect resources to promote the productive capacity of rural poor women. In 2006, secure access to land, but also water and other natural resources for women and men, is on top of the international agenda. Governments meeting next week at International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in Porto Alegre (Brazil) will join efforts to reach agreements on these questions.Giving women secure access to land can transform their lives both economically and socially. IFAD finances development projects in some of the poorest rural areas of the world where increasing pressures on land threaten the loss of land rights by the rural poor, women and indigenous women in particular. IFAD has learned that defending and expanding women’s rights requires comprehensive action at different levels: information and capacity-building; organisation and empowerment measures; legal assistance and advocacy. This year’s session of the Commission is considering two priority themes: “Enhanced participation of women in development: an enabling environment for achieving gender equality and the advancement of women” and ”Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels”. For IFAD, an enabling environment to achieve gender equality has three dimensions: economic empowerment, participation in decision-making and improved well-being. Economic empowerment means access to productive assets, land, water, markets, finances and technologies. Improved well-being for rural women requires improved infrastructure and essential services, changes in women’s workload, better health, training and education. Women’s role in decision-making in community affairs and local institutions is necessary for increased political representation and sustained political involvement of women. In IFAD supported projects, quotas are sometimes introduced for the number of women on community development groups, water user’s associations and self-help groups. Giving women a voice in community matters and access to leadership positions at the grass root level is the first step, which is then followed by supporting women at the municipal and departmental level, at the province and governmental level, such as in Ministries for Rural Development or Agriculture. Women are more likely to participate in both private and public decision-making if they have greater knowledge, economic assets and income-earning capacity which in turn increase their self-esteem and confidence. Support from husbands, other family members and local leaders is also essential and they need to be made aware of the importance of women being involved in such activities. Women’s groups and organizations have proved very effective in giving women collective power and influence. Madam Chairperson, The gender dimension of international migration is one of the emerging issues discussed by this Commission. Migration affects the rural areas in a particular way, whether women are left behind and receive remittances or whether they are migrating on their own and sustain their families back home. Many young and destitute women from rural areas run a high risk of being trafficked. IFAD is currently developing an innovative project on rural migration, trafficking and HIV/AIDS in Armenia and Moldova which aims at creating rural employment in the rural areas by encouraging remittances of migrants as an investment into rural enterprises back home. The Commission will decide on a multi-year programme of work for the period 2007-2009. We welcome the proposal to sustain focus on a given topic over a period of two years and thus strengthen the connection between policy development and implementation. When developing the content on each suggested topics, we advocate that special emphasis be put on the status of women and girls in the rural areas and the particular challenges they face, in particular their economic empowerment and their role in decision-making. In closing, IFAD would like to reiterate its commitment to work with all partners – Governments, the UN system and civil society, towards the achievement of gender equality. Thank you. |
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