Programme of Action to Assist IFAD Projects to Reach Rural Women in Near East and North African Countries

1. The Programme of Action to Assist IFAD Projects to Reach Rural Women in Near East and North African Countries is a five-year technical assistance grant cofinanced by IFAD and Italian and Japanese Supplementary Funds. The programme aims to increase the capacity of IFAD, government and project-level staff to analyse and address the different and complementary roles of women and men in agricultural production, and to tailor project services to the needs of men and women producers.

2. The programme will work in close coordination with projects, IFAD and cooperating institutions. It will not create separate ‘projects’, but rather a series of interventions that will help existing IFAD-supported projects to meet their objectives of poverty reduction more effectively and equitably.

3. In consultation with the projects, the programme of action will develop a two- to three-year collaboration plan tailored to the needs and strengths of each project. The collaboration plan will evolve around the following services:

• training and technical assistance on the meaning of equitable development for women and men, and on the skills of gender analysis and their application to community approaches, enterprise development, capacity-building of local organizations, networking, monitoring and evaluation, and project management. Training and technical assistance will primarily target project staff and will complement the training already scheduled by the project;
• pilot activities at community level to provide services otherwise not included in the loan agreement but deemed necessary for the achievement of project objectives, to test new production or processing technologies, to help the project phase out its activities, etc. These pilot activities should help increase the value of women's labour, household food security and well-being, and community support to women's development. They will also involve men and will be cofinanced by the programme of action, the project and the community;
• support to local women development units, by involving them in training and technical assistance activities organized by the project and the programme of action;
• country and regional study tours to exchange experiences on specific topics related to realizing equity and sustainability in community development. These study tours can target either project staff or beneficiaries;
• documentation and dissemination of experiences in equitable and participatory community development, through a newsletter and/or web page;
• assistance with the development of AWP/Bs to incorporate measures that will increase project effectiveness in reaching and working with women meaningfully; and
• scholarships to project staff and local counterpart agencies to attend training events related to practical experiences in the equitable development of women and men.

4. In exchange, the programme of action is seeking the following support from counterpart agencies and projects:

• commitment to participate in the programme of action;
• use of skills acquired by staff members through training and participation in pilot activities aimed at improving their performance in reaching out to and working with women. This should be reflected in AWP/Bs;
• commitment to cofinance the activities agreed upon with the programme of action;
• monitoring and documentation of activities conducted jointly by the project and the programme of action; and
• nomination of resource organizations to provide projects with technical backstopping in the area of equitable development for women and men.

5. The results expected from the programme of action are:

• increased knowledge and skills of IFAD, counterpart agencies and project staff to analyse gender issues in beneficiary communities and to address these issues through the design, implementation, supervision, monitoring and evaluation of integrated rural development projects;
• documentation, testing and dissemination of institutional and technical approaches to achieve tangible and relevant benefits for women and men, and their communities;
• development of a gender-mainstreaming strategy that addresses the specific context of the NENA region; and
• development of a resource base that includes resource persons/organizations, terms of reference, samples of gender-sensitive AWP/Bs, and techniques that support gender mainstreaming at IFAD and project levels.

Support to Activities Implemented So Far

6. The Programme of Action to Reach Rural Women in the NENA Region was launched in October 2001. Its main activities consist of (i) an initial assessment of project training needs and country opportunities, in terms of capacity to analyse and address gender issues (link to gender training needs assessment reports in pdf form); and (ii) a regional workshop (link to workshop report in pdf form) to share project experiences in addressing and responding to women’s needs. The main support activities to be provided to the projects are:

• Developing a training curriculum on gender issues in Arabic (estimated duration: one year). The curriculum will help project staff and trainers address gender issues in rural development, project management functions, extension activities, enterprise development activities and rural financial services. Curriculum development is coordinated by the North Kordofan Rural Development Project in The Sudan, and the resulting manual will be shared with both IFAD-financed projects and relevant organizations.
• Supporting livestock enterprises managed by women (estimated duration: two years). This activity, carried out in collaboration with the FAO Animal Production Group, will include identifying and addressing the gender constraints facing such enterprises, providing women with appropriate technology to process livestock products based on market demand, facilitating women’s access to markets, and helping women manage their producers’ cooperatives more effectively. Collaborating projects are the Coastal/Midlands Agricultural Development Project in Syria and the South Kordofan Rural Development Programme in The Sudan. Activities within these focal projects are shared and disseminated to projects both in the same countries and in different countries.
• Mainstreaming women-related activities within projects (estimated duration: three months). Support will be given to projects so that they can integrate women-related activities into activities promoting community development and sustainable natural resource management. This will include helping projects to assess women’s needs, mobilizing local support from women and associations to respond to those needs, and ensuring sustainability of project interventions in favour of women. The participating project is the Rural Development Project for Taourirt - Taforalt in Morocco.
• Supporting the implementing agency in the assessment of the impact of its activities on women’s livelihoods (estimated duration: 1-2 months). Based on the assessment, the implementing agency will review its own plans for improving women’s social and economic situation, and take corrective action accordingly. The participating organizations are the Regional Agricultural Development Authorities of Tafilalet and Ouarzazate.

7. New activities will be developed based on inputs and suggestions from the projects, counterpart agencies, cooperating institutions and IFAD country portfolio managers.

Further Information

8. For further information on the technical assistance services that the Near East and North Africa division provides on knowledge, skills and management practices to promote equitable development for women and men, please contact:

Rasha Omar
Programme Coordinator
Programme of Action to Reach Rural Women in the NENA Region
Near East and North Africa Division, IFAD

Ericka Sorensen
Programme Assistant
Programme of Action to Reach Rural Women in the NENA Region
Near East and North Africa Division, IFAD

Tel: 0039-06-54592100
Fax: 0039-06-5043463
E-mail: r.omar@ifad.org
E-mail: e.sorensen@ifad.org