Agriculture and Rural Development
Issues:
Food Security
Sustainable Livelihood
Infrastructure
Mobility
Agriculture and Rural Development is a key area for poverty reduction, given that the majority of poor people live in rural areas and are engaged in some form of agricultural production, whether for subsistence or income. Sustainably improving small farmers’ skills in crop production and marketing is therefore an important means of supporting them to move out of poverty. The SDC supports farmers in the area of production, marketing and sustainable use of resources, and in these ways makes a substantial contribution to poverty reduction.
In agriculture, women play an important role as producers, processors and providers to ensure foodsecurity and sustainable livelihoods. Despite this, women in many countries have less access to land, income, and credit than men, as well as less control of resources. They have also less access to appropriate knowledge or technologies,and are rarely consulted in policy-making on agriculture. These inequalities can result in a higher risk of poverty and food insecurity for poor women and their families than men. SDC recognises the vital need to tackle gender equality issues as an integral part of broader agricultural interventions.
Links:
World Bank: Gender and Rural Development
SDC: Food Security, Agriculture and Rural Development
FAO: Database on gender and land rights
Publications:
Platform Policy Brief sept 2010: Gender and Agriculture
IFPRI 2009: Promising Approaches to address the needs of poor femal farmers
According to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences foran active and healthy life. Worldwide women constitute the majority of small farmers, and are often responsible for producing, providing and processing food. At the same time women are more likely to be affected by nutritional deficiencies due to their lower economic and social status compared to men. Their key role in enabling food security, coupled with the vulnerabilities they experience,mean that women’s farmers specific needs must be fully understood and addressed in development programs. In addition, the impacts of all interventions to improve food security must be monitored in gender-sensitive ways.
Links:
FAO: Gender and food security: nutrition
Publications:
PAHO: Fact Sheet Gender and Food Security
A sustainable livelihood approach places people and their priorities at the centre of development. Such approaches focus on empowering the poor to build on their own opportunities and access needed assets. Sustainable livelihood approaches mainly highlight the possibilities (for example natural resources, skills, social networks, education etc.) and the constraints (such as lack of access to employment or markets, natural disasters, or adverse political situations etc.) faced by poor people. The focus on people means that a sustainable livelihoods approach must address gender explicitly and systematically, and integrate a gender equality perspective in all implementation strategies.
Links:
IFAD: Sustainable livelihood approach (SLA)
Publications:
FAO 2004: Post-conflict land tenure, Using a Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
Infrastructure programs often ignore the reality that new infrastructure (such as changes in the way that energy and water are delivered and received, or changes in how public transport is provided) may have different impacts on women and men, both negative and positive. Gender equality issues therefore must be included and reflectedin the design and implementation of infrastructural programs. Gender-aware development policy relating to infrastructure aims to promote equal opportunities for women and men and improve women’s and men’s access to infrastructure, as well as enabling both women’s and men’s participation in its design. It is vital to understand the different requirements of women and men, and the different ways in which they can contribute to the improvement and maintenance of infrastructure.
Links:
IFC: Gender Resources on Infrastructure
World Bank: Gender and Development: Infrastructure
Publications:
BRIDGE 2004: Gender, Infrastructure and Poverty Reduction: Tools and other Key Resources
In the context of genderequality, the term ‘mobility’ refers to social, economic and physical mobility. Social and economic mobility can be structural (men and women are doing better than they used to, or better than their parents did), or relative, whereby men and women earn more and have more comfortable lives than others of a similar age in different circumstances. Physical Mobility means the possibility of women and men to equally enjoy freedom of movement as well as access to means of transport, which can be crucial for activities outside the home such as attending political, economic, social and cultural meetings, events, education, and activities but also for survival in natural disasters, etc.
Social and economic as well as physical mobility are crucial for men and women, for the realization of their rights, as well as for the improvement of their living conditions. Equal opportunities with regard to social mobility as well as equal access to physical mobility must be granted.
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