REPORT OF THE 29th reca SEMINAR ON "empowerment of rural women in afro-asian region : opportunities and challenges" held on 08-21 July 2007, Tokyo, Japan

The subject of rural women’s empowerment has been in vogue quite for a long time at various international fora. Starting from the first World Conference on Women in 1975 to its present status, the movement has passed through various stages and ultimately brought the issue on the centre stage now. To address women’s issues, besides other international organisations, AARDO also has taken several initiatives to empower women in the Afro-Asian countries. These initiatives have been taken in several forms such as organisation of training programmes, workshops and seminars, financing of development pilot projects, dissemination of information, etc.

In fact, organisation of international workshops and seminars on topical themes has been the regular activity of AARDO as this has been helping to serve member countries to come to a common platform to exchange their experiences and explore the opportunities of adapting successful projects in their own countries. The 29th RECA Seminar on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Afro-Asian Region : Opportunities and Challenges” held in Japan in July 2007 is AARDO’s latest but concerted initiative to achieve this objective. The seminar was organised with a view to review the progress made during the last three decades to empower rural women in the socio-economic and political arena; to examine the current status of rural women empowerment programmes in national policies of the Afro-Asian countries; to highlight opportunities and challenges in promoting rural women empowerment in the era of globalisation; and to explore the possibilities to replicate the successful models/practices on rural women empowerment programmes.

In fact, new millennium offered fresh opportunities to empwering rural women in view of the United Nations General Assembely resolution of September 2000 in which member countries have been given set target to achieve them. The resolution offered new opportunities as well as posed severeal challenges before the country governments to empower rural women.

It has been observed that, over the decades, a number of policies and programmes have been created in almost all the Afro-Asian countries to empower rural women, but their actual implementation has unfortunately been tardy. Either, implementing institutions pay lip service to start a programme or resource allocation are too inadequate to check desired effects of the programme. There is a genuine and strong need to constitute implementation committees whose only job would be to monitor the level of progress and take appropriate remedial measures to ensure that the programme achieve its targets. In other words, opportunities do exist to empower rural women, there is a need to translate them into effective action.

Another important challenge that rural women face during empowerment process is the urgency to devise innovative and impregnable mechanisms as conventional strategies have miserably failed to deliver results. While devising innovative strategies, views of menfolk should be flexibly accommodated so that strategies become much more effective, if not fool proof.
In fact, economic and political factors are the crucial keys to empower rural women. Both these factors of power if put together have the potential to transform the conditions of rural women beyond conventional thinking. To empower them economically, there is a need to take affirmative action to further develop their skills, capacities and productivity as well as enforce gender sensitive laws and policies to protect their rights in the labour force. Legal protection should also be provided to women in ownership of land so that women could become independent to chart out their own strategy in agricultural production. Similarly, to empower them politically, there is a need to create special funds for women for political campaign as well as give them training on political and legal rights. Similarly, in schools and colleges, knowledge of political rights should be imparted and made part of the curriculum and at the same time, periodic elections should be held where students should participate and learn political processes. Important of all, legislation should be enacted to reserve seats for women in national legislative assembly. Their involvement in the apex level decision making body would surely help to achieve the targets.

Closely associated with economico-political factors are social and cultural conditions that reinforce to negate the advancement of rural women. Inability of rural women to question conventional wisdom has perpetuated men’s domination in the patriarchal society. The effective solution to this challenge lies in educating rural women. An educated woman can arguably challenge social dogmas and assert their position. Here again, an innovative approach is needed to convert this potential human resource into a development tool.

It is against this backdrop of continuing dynamism to empower rural women that AARDO decided to focus this 29th RECA seminar on empowerment of rural women with a view to highlight and deliberate the major issues involved in the empowerment processes. The seminar brought together senior women officers of 16 AARDO member countries to discuss innovative socio-economic and political strategies like access to and control over resources, role of the state and socio-cultural transformation to empower rural women. The recommendations of the seminar, I believe, could help our member countries in formulating effective strategies to genuinely empower rural women. All the important information including proceedings of the seminar has been documented in this report. I hope that the publication of this report would be yet another input on the existing literature of women empowerment subject.

New Delhi                                                                         Abdalla Yahia Adam
26 November 2007                                                         Secretary General 

I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to the 29th RECA seminar on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Afro-Asian Region : Opportunities and Challenges”, which is being jointly organised by Afro-Asian Rural Development Organization, Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives or JA Zenchu and the Institute for the Development of Agricultural Cooperation in Asia or IDACA. At the outset, I would like to express my sincere thanks to JA Zenchu and IDACA for their cooperation in successfully organising successive RECA seminars on relevant and topical issues from the year 1968 onwards. The participation of member countries in full strength is a further testimony to the great value that our member countries attach to the RECA seminar and to this very important issue of women’s empowerment.

We all understand the importance of addressing gender concerns in the present world scenario. The time has come when gender issues need to be mainstreamed into the development agenda of all countries particularly in the developing world where women continue to face multiple disadvantages such as low literacy levels, high maternal mortality rates, and heavy workload particularly in the rural areas. Our technological interventions and programmes need to be formulated keeping this in mind. Coming to some statistics briefly, while women constitute 70 per cent of the rural poor, they own only 2 per cent of all land and receive only 5 per cent of extension services. As per the World Bank estimates, women in Africa receive only 1 per cent of the total credit going to the agricultural sector. At the same time, the proportion of women-headed household is continually growing in the developing countries, reaching almost one-third in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rural women are responsible for half of the world’s food production and produce between 60 to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries. Yet, despite this significant contribution to global food security, women farmers are often under-estimated and overlooked in development strategies. Still worse is the extreme gender inequality and disregard of women’s rights which is shown by the statistics of 60 million girls ‘missing’, mostly in Asia due to female infanticide.

Understanding the crucial role of rural women in our development processes, a number of initiatives have been taken by various international organizations particularly the UN and its agencies to improve their status. While initiatives such as declaring the International Decade for Women between the years 1976 – 1985 and setting up of the International Research and Training Institute for Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), served to sensitise the policy-makers to the problems of women, it is the Beijing Declaration of 1995 which mainstreamed gender issues into the forefront of the development agenda. It highlighted the critical areas of concern such as the persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women; unequal access to education and training, unequal access to health care services; violence against and effect of armed conflicts on women; unequal economic structure and policies and access to resources; gender inequality in decision-making; insufficient mechanisms to promote women’s empowerment; lack of protection and promotion of human rights of women; gender inequalities in the management of natural resources and environmental preservation, etc.

In recent years, AARDO has initiated a number of programmes on empowerment of rural women. Apart from encouraging the participation of women in various programmes of AARDO, a number of workshops and training courses have been organised on issues such as Empowerment of Women through Rural Enterprises, Promotion of Micro-enterprises for Rural Women, Food Processing Enterprises for Women, etc. AARDO has tried to address the cause of rural women in the Afro-Asian region by sensitising the policy-makers and planners to gender issues and in its own incremental way. It has helped to devise appropriate strategies to address the problems of rural women. AARDO has also funded a number of Development Pilot Projects which have helped rural women in its member countries to start their own micro-enterprises and become financially self-reliant. The latest initiative of AARDO is the Regional Workshop on “Women Entrepre-neurship in Rural Africa: Trends and Perspectives”, which was organised from 24th to 28th June at Cairo, Egypt.

One of the most significant initiatives taken by AARDO recently for addressing gender concerns is the ‘New Delhi Declaration’ which was the outcome of the Inter-Ministerial Summit on “Rural Development : Afro-Asian Perspective” held in India on the 12th of January 2007. The Declaration strongly reaffirmed the resolution of its member countries to adopt measures to reduce workload on women, expand gainful employment opportunities for them and ensure equal pay for work of equal value. The Declaration resolved that measures would be taken for prevention and elimination of all forms of violence and other harmful practices against women; to improve their representation in all structures of power and decision-making; to address gender imbalances in education and training; to ensure availability of gender segregated data and training of the data users for its proper analysis and use for planning, monitoring and evaluation of all development programmes; and to ensure that rural women are accorded full and equal access to and control over land and other productive resources including credit, technologies, market and other services.

However, in spite of all the efforts made for addressing the problems of women, their condition still remains far from satisfactory. Their contribution in the family and work sphere still goes largely unrecognised and poorly rewarded in economic terms. Instead of being central to our planning processes and being treated as principal agents of economic development, women are still looked upon simply as a target group for whom programmes have to be devised. An even greater cause for concern is the fact that though policy pronouncements and legislative framework is in place in most of the Afro-Asian countries, there is a significant lack of will to implement these measures in true letter and spirit. Unless this is done there can be no genuine empowerment of rural women.

Against the above backdrop, I hope that the deliberations of this RECA seminar prove to be fruitful. I am sure they will stimulate further discussions among member countries and will result in appropriate policy interventions. On AARDO’s part, I would like to promise full support in widely disseminating the recommendations among the policy planners of member nations. We would also keep them in mind while formulating our own technical work programmes and development pilot projects.

At the end, I would like to again express my sincere thanks to JA Zenchu and IDACA for their continuing support in successfully organising the RECA seminar in Japan. I would also like to wish good luck to all the participants. I am sure this seminar, followed by the field visit, will give all of them a deep insight not only into Japanese culture but also into the policy initiatives taken by Japan in the field of women’s empowerment.

Thank you for your kind attention.
 

Inaugural Session

The 29th RECA Seminar on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Afro-Asian Region: Opportunities and Challenges” commenced in the morning of 9th July 2007 at the Conference Hall of the Institute for the Development of Agricultural Cooperation in Asia (IDACA) in Tokyo. The inaugural session of the seminar was addressed by Mrs Seema Bahuguna, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO and Mr Kazuo Tsukada, Executive Director, IDACA. In her address, Mrs Bahuguna highlighted the contribution of rural women in food production and other activities. She stated that rural women are responsible for half of the world’s food production and produce between 60 to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries. Yet, despite this significant contribution to global food security, women farmers are often under-estimated and overlooked in development strategies. Besides, she also explained the initiatives taken by AARDO such as training programmes, workshops and seminars, development projects, etc., to improve the conditions rural women in Afro-Asian region. Before concluding her address, she thanked IDACA and JA Zenchu for their continuing support in organising RECA Seminar series and assured the house that the recommendations of the seminar would be widely disseminated among AARDO member countries.

In his address, Mr Kazuo Tsukada, first of all, welcome all the participants in Japan on behalf of the 9 million agricultural cooperative members. He also stated that IDACA has provided training to around 5,000 participants from 108 countries mainly from Asia and Africa. Before concluding, Mr Tsukada thanked every body and assured that IDACA would do every best to make the seminar a success.

Objectives

The seminar was organised with the following objective :

• to review the efforts towards women empowerment in the socio-economic, political and decision making aspects in the last three decade;

• to examine the current status of rural women empowerment programmes in national policies of the Afro-Asian countries;

• to highlight opportunities and challenges in promoting rural women empowerment in the era of globalisation; and

• to exchange views and experiences and explore the possibilities to replicate the successful models/practices on empowerment of rural women.

Participation

The seminar was by attended by seventeen participants from sixteen member countries, namely, one each from Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Morocco, Oman, Philippines, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Zambia and two from India. Besides, there were three resource persons, that is, one each from Bangladesh, India and Ghana and two resource persons from Japan who contributed in the seminar.

Technical Sessions

The technical sessions of the seminar were held from 9 to 12 July 2007 in which five expert and sixteen country papers were presented. Presentation of the papers were also followed by questions/observations/clarifications from the participants. The sessions were chaired by Mrs Seema Bahuguna, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO. Following is the summary of expert and country papers :

Presentation of Expert Papers

In the seminar, five expert papers were presented by resource persons from Bangladesh, Ghana, India and Japan.

Expert Paper 1 : “Japanese Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives” by Mr Toru Nakashima

First expert paper of the seminar as titled above was presented by Mr Toru Nakashima, the resource person from IDACA. Mr Nakashima gave a brief overview on the state of agriculture in Japan. He elaborated the factors responsible for agriculture and rural development in Japan, namely, implementation of land reform, pivotal role played by the government, progress of mechanisation, rapid economic growth during 1955-1973, conducive laws, development of infrastructure, institutional support and price support system, etc. Mr Nakashima also differentiated between the types of agricultural cooperatives and types of membership in agricultural cooperatives. Further elaborating on this point, Mr Nakashima stated that multi-purpose cooperatives have been playing a very important role in Japanese society and provide various types of services to their members. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

Expert Paper 2 : “Women Empowerment in Afro-Asian Countries: Need for a Re-look on Priorities” by Prof. M Thaha

Prof. M Thaha, the Resource Person from India presented her above titled expert paper. In her paper, she stated that elimination of discrimination and empowerment of women are the major challenges before Afro-Asian countries. Half of the food in the world is contributed by women but they are highly marginalised when it comes to control over resources. She further stated that women are facing many problems which, among others, included alarming maternal mortality rate, female infanticide, sex tourism, women trafficking, etc. Another area of concern is that one-third of global population consists of women headed households in which primary responsibility to manage household affairs falls on women. Besides, intensity of poverty is higher among women and poverty among women in Africa, unfortunately, has increased during the last decade. Women who need priority attention, according to Prof Thaha, are poor women in poorest countries, adolescent women and girls in conflict prone areas, HIV positive, sick and old women, etc. Prof. Thaha also focused on priority areas such as post-primary education for girls, reproductive health, inheritance rights, gender equality in empowerment, representation in national legislative assemblies, etc. which needed to be addressed. F<For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

Expert Paper 3 : “Emancipation of Female and Gender Development Framework” by Mrs Nurun Nahar Begum

Mrs. Nurun Nahar Begum, the Resource Person from Bangladesh began her presentation by defining the term “empowerment”. She explained some of the frameworks for women’s empowerment like Harvard Analytical Framework, Women Empowerment Framework, Social Relations Framework and Emancipation Framework. The purpose of these frameworks is to emancipate women as well as men from unequal relationships. While further dwelling on women emancipation framework, she enumerated twelve attributes which, among others, included ability to exercise decision-making power, self-assertiveness, access to and control over information, learning skills, positive self-image, overcoming dishonour and stigma, etc. Women emancipation framework has also four inter-related components, namely, material resources and services, socio-political and rights issues, intellectual capability and idealistic component. These components identify the multi-dimensional status of women.

In addition to these frameworks, Mrs Nahar narrated the challenges namely, gender sensitive budgeting, absence of women in decision-making, justice and rights, mental illness and poverty, need for education, etc. which women are facing. At the end of her presentation, Mrs Nahar stressed on the need for mobilising national and international efforts to bring about legal equality and reforming institutions to establish equal rights and opportunities for women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

Expert Paper 4 : “Empowerment of Women: Situation in Ghana” by Mrs Mabel Cudjoe

The fourth expert paper of the business session was presented by Mrs Mabel Cudjoe, the resource person from Ghana, on the above titled theme. In her presentation, Mrs Mabel highlighted the contribution of rural women. According to her, rural women are responsible for about 90 per cent of the food chain needs of Ghana and they constitute about 47 per cent of the labour force. Further dwelling on characteristics of women, Mrs Mabel said that they employ traditional methods in their activities, education level is very low, rate of poverty is high as well as high levels of infant morbidity and maternal mortality. Efforts to empower them should be looked at from the perspective of policy-making, water, sanitation and environment needs, economic empowerment processes and women’s rights and entitlements. Mrs Mabel also narrated challenges which women face. There is need to step up gender into policy formulation and budgeting process, backed by proper documentation on sex differentials. In her conclusion, she said that though the future seems bright in Ghana, we need to do our planning carefully to enable the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

Expert Paper 5 : “Entrepreneurship and Rural Women’s Empowerment in Japan” by Ms Kazuko Kano

The fifth and last above titled expert paper was presented by Ms Kazuko Kano, the resource person from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). In her paper, Ms Kazuko Kano stated that 60 per cent of workforce in agriculture are women. She illustrated her presentation with case study of Misako in which she stated that there are six types of field level activities performed by women, namely, agricultural production, food processing, non-food processing, distribution and sale of farm produce, rural tourism and services.<For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

The presentation of expert papers invited interesting comments, observations as well as questions. In response to a query by the participant from India whether Gender Sensitive Analysis Index has been applied in any country, Mrs Nurun Nahar, the resource person from Bangladesh said that this index has been applied in the select pockets of Bangladesh. The participant from India enquired from the Resource Person of Ghana as to what are the parameters applied in her country to measure poverty. The participant from Sudan stated that women’s representation in the national legislative assembly of the Sudan is around 20 per cent unlike average of 15 per cent in other countries. The participant of Jordan stated that men should also have been invited to participate in the seminar so that we could also know their views on women empowerment too. In her observation, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO said that genuine political empowerment has not taken place and we need to discuss further how to achieve this objective. Right to property and participation in political processes are two important issues which can help to empower women. The participant from Bangladesh stated that the traditions and culture play very important role in property inheritance rights.

Presentation of Country Papers

In all, sixteen country papers were presented by the participating countries.

The paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Bangladesh : Opportunities and Challenges” was presented by Mrs Saima Shahin Sultana, the participant from Bangladesh in which she highlighted that many steps have been taken during the last thirty years to change the status and conditions of women in Bangladesh through provisions of laws, executive orders, policy interventions and building of institutions. Besides, specific policies have also been framed and implemented in terms of education and skill-training, health and nutrition, employment and legal support to women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. Mrs Sallama Zebro/Sylla, the participant from Burkina Faso, in her country paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Burkina Faso : Opportunities and Challenges” stated that access to land is by inheritance, gift or loan, but of late, the sale of land has been introduced by the government. In this regard, women get access to land ownership either through indirect ways of inheritance or through the sale. There is a need for a direct intervention to support empowerment processes. In this context, she quoted successful examples of Oxfam and National Programme of Land Management in helping women for rights use of land. Another area of intervention which can help to empower rural women is lobbying with political, administrative and traditional authorities in order to change policies, practices and mentality. In her conclusion, Mrs Sallama stated that if women are organised and an appropriate strategy of communication is identified, this will make significant impact to improve their conditions. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. Ms Olivia Okailey Quartey, the participant from Ghana, in her paper on “Post Beijing Status of Rural Women in Ghana”, stated that women empowerment processes are not so strong mainly due to inability of women to own or control over resources, negative cultural practices, lack of capital and less voice in decision-making. To empower women in Ghana, she suggested that land tenure system should be revised; there should be an easy access to micro-credit; non-formal education should be strengthened; agriculture should be modernised and role of media to highlight conditions of rural women should also be strengthened. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>.

The paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in India: Opportunities and Challenges” was jointly presented by Mrs Manisha Verma and Mrs Vanita Sharma from India. Mrs Verma stated that India has one of the best legislative frameworks for women’s empowerment but laws are not followed in practice in totality. With regard to the opportunities for rural women, she stated that national policy for women is a comprehensive document to address economic, social, legal and political empowerment issues. The country paper of India was further supplemented by Mrs Vanita Sharma in which she highlighted various policies and programmes like national agricultural policy, Indira Awaas Yojana and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme under implementation by the Ministry of Rural Development of India to empower rural women.<For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. In her paper on “The Current Status of Rural Women Empowerment Programmes in Jordan”, Ms Lamia Sharif Al Qawasmeh from Jordan said that there are gender inequality problems in Arab countries. The position of women in decision- making is weak. A more balanced presence of women and men would be needed to give gender equality a prominent place on the political agenda. Similarly, equality policy should ensure that a gender perspective is integrated into all policy areas and that the whole of society is involved in promoting equality. Plan of action (2004 – 2010) has been drawn by the government of Jordan to empower women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us> The country paper on Lebanon was presented by Mrs Dina Mansour. In her paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Lebanon: A Case Study”, she stated that women in Southern Lebanon are suffering from low level of education and unable to adopt new technologies for production. Similarly, there are many unsuccessful women cooperatives mainly due to marketing problems in the area. In Lebanon, rural women development programmes have both economic and social objectives as these promote economic empowerment of rural women and capacity building of local associations and Community Based Organisations (CBOs). <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>.

Mrs Nagat Mohamed Elmezoughi, the participant from Libya, in her presentation on “Rural Women Employment Programmes in Great Socialist Peoples’ Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” stated that the government has established around 350 vocational training centres for women to train farming families in income generating activities. Besides, there are number of institutions for women’s development like national development bank, agricultural bank and fund for transformation which have been providing credit to empower women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us> A paper on “Women and ICT in Rural Community: Malaysian Perspective” was presented by Mrs Norlidasaidi Binti Awang from Malaysia. Her paper highlighted the role of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) in empowering rural women. It attempted to portray that IT literacy for women in rural areas is in line with government’s current emphasis on IT and the New Philosophy and Strategies for Rural Development. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. “Empowerment of Rural Women in Mauritius: Opportunities and Challenges” was presented by Ms Premilla Devi Ramdenee from Mauritius. In the paper, she highlighted the institutional arrangements that existed after Beijing Conference to empower women. Other measures adopted to improve conditions of rural women in Mauritius included micro-credit schemes, health programmes, marriage counseling, education and training and poverty alleviation programmes. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>

The paper on “Gender Profile and Empowerment of Rural Women in Morocco” was presented by Ms Anissa Naqrachi, the participant from Morocco. She explained many new laws that have been enacted to protect women. A new labour law of 2004 was enacted to protect women and children rights, but in reality, these rights have been continuously flouted. Although 92 per cent of active women in rural areas in Morocco are in agriculture, they have less access to land. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. After the presentation of Morocco, the participant from Oman, Ms. Tarakiya Said Al-Adawi presented her paper on “Role of Training in Developing Rural Women in Oman”. In her paper, she elaborated on the institutional & structural, social & cultural, economic and legal constraints which hindered women’s empowerment. To remove these constraints, she suggested the need for establishing data base on rural women, establishing integration strategy, enhancing local communication and establishing training centres for women. She also highlighted the importance of “craft” in empowering rural women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. The participant from the Philippines, Ms. Encarnacion Jesma Blanco presented her paper on “Rural Women Empowerment : The Philippines Experiences”. In her presentation, she stated that non-availability of data on women has constrained in disbursing micro-credit to them. Besides, impact of WTO on prices of agricultural commodities has further marginalised rural women. Increasing unemployment among rural women is yet another area of concern that needed priority attention in the Philippines. With regard to the challenges faced by women, Mrs Blanco advocated the need for legislative measures both at national and local level to empower women as well as strengthening government policy and programmes for enterprise development. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. Ms Suad Abdalla Ali Ramram, the participant from Sudan presented her paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Afro-Asian Region: Opportunities and Challenges – Sudan’s Experience”. While defining the term “empowerment”, she said that rural women produce more than 75 per cent of the total food and keep 61 per cent of the livestock in the Sudan. In 1993, Business Women Trust was established to provide loans to women entrepreneurs. Besides, a National Comprehensive Strategy “NCS” 1992-2002 was launched with specific objective to give top priority to development of women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>.

Ms. Ebtisam Dyab Alshami, the participant from Syria, presented her paper on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Syria: Opportunities and Challenges” in which she enumerated the challenges like unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and unequal access to resources which hinder women’s empowerment. Most statistics do not value domestic work of women in Syria, according to Ms. Ebtisam. General Union of Syrian Women for micro-credit programme is helping to improve status of women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us> “Empowerment of Rural Women in Republic of Yemen” was another country paper presented by Ms. Wafa Abdul Wahed Nasher from Yemen. Women constitute 87 per cent of labour force in rural area. Of this, 74 per cent work in agriculture without wages. Women have limited access to technology and resources. But after the unification of Yemen in 1992, several new programmes have been launched to improve conditions of women which, among others, included General Directorate of Rural Women Development and Directorate of Reproductive Health Services. While summing up her paper, Ms. Wafa reiterated the need for reducing gender gap in education, equal health care and elimination of violence against women. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>. The last country paper of the seminar was presented by Ms. Testiner Mweetwa from Zambia on “Empowerment of Rural Women in Zambia: Opportunities and Challenges”. Her paper highlighted the strategies to improve conditions of rural women which, inter alia, included women’s access to information, equitable distribution of productive resources and promoting and strengthening of micro-enterprises. With regard to the challenges faced by women, Ms. Testiner stated that there are very few micro-finance institutions and training centres in rural areas as well as there is a problem of long distance travelling to sell farm produce. <For full text of the paper, please E-mail us>.

The presentation of country papers invited comments, observations and questions from the participants. Interesting observations were made on the issue of access to land by rural women. In India and Bangladesh, there are too many people but too little land to be given to women whereas in Oman and Sudan, there is plenty of land which can be distributed among women. Similarly in Ghana, government is trying to get land from the chieftains to be re-distributed among women. To empower women, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO said, there is a need to provide education and training and resources but not a fixed quota for them. In response to an another query from the Assistant Secretary General, AARDO as to what are the legislative provisions to provide land to women, the participant of Burkina Faso replied that land belongs to the government in her country and there are provisions for tenancy. In reply to a question as to how loan can be given to women farmers when they do not own land, the participant from Sudan replied that there is a Women Trust Bank in her country to provide loans to women for entrepreneurial activities. In response to a query by the participant from Bangladesh about the success of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in India, Mrs Vanita Sharma from India stated that SHGs are doing well but needed to be integrated with other activities. Wherever there is an institutional support like in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, SHGs have done well in providing credit services to women. In reply to yet another query from Dr Abe of IDACA as to why SEWA has not spread its activities throughout India unlike AMUL, the participant from India stated that now SEWA is also gradually increasing its base. It has already made inroads into Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, besides Gujarat.

Valedictory Session

The valedictory session of the seminar was held in the afternoon of 13th July 2007. On this occasion, Ms. Seema Bahuguna, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO thanked IDACA as well as the participants for their cooperation and active participation in successfully organising the seminar. She especially thanked IDACA for the nice arrangements as well as wished good luck to the participants for field visit during next week. Mr Kazuo Tsukada, Executive Director, IDACA also thanked AARDO and the participants for their active participation and concentration during the deliberation and hoped that this seminar will be useful in furthering women empowerment programmes. Thereafter, the certificates were awarded to the participants jointly by Mrs Seema Bahuguna, Assistant Secretary General, AARDO and Mr Kazuo Tsukada, Executive Director, IDACA.

On behalf of the participants, a vote of thanks was presented by Ms Premilla Devi Ramdenee, the participant from Mauritius. She thanked AARDO for providing them an opportunity to attend the RECA seminar as well as IDACA for successfully hosting the seminar and taking care of the participants during their stay in IDACA and hoped that field visit will be equally successful.

In order to arrive at appropriate recommendations of the seminar, the participants were divided into three groups and each group was given a specific topic to deliberate upon. The groups discussed in details the topics keeping in view of the objectives of the seminar and presented their recommendations in a plenary session held on 13 July 2007. The reports of the groups are as follow:
 

GROUP ‘A’
 

Topic: “Economic Empowerment - Access to and Control Over Land and Other Resources”

Resource Person    :   Prof. Mumtaz Thaha, India
Chairperson             :   Ms Olivia Okailey Quartey, Ghana
Secretary                 :   Ms Manisha Verma, India
Members : -
                                       1 Ms Sallama Zerbo/ Sylla, Burkina Faso
                                       2 Ms Nagat Mohamed Elmezoughi, Libya
                                       3 Ms Anissa Naqrachi, Morocco
                                       4 Ms Ebtisam Dyab Alshami, Syria
                                       5 Mr Khushnood Ali, AARDO

Recommendations

Economic empowerment needs to be understood as a whole in context of overall empowerment of women. It cannot be seen in isolation and is reinforced by better social and political opportunities and conducive cultural traditions.

1    Issues for Concern

i)     Low income and poverty

ii) Lack of access to and control over land and productive resources

iii) Inadequate knowledge and skill

iv) Poor access to employment opportunities, infrastructure and technology for development

v) Absence of gender sensitive laws and policies favourable for economic empowerment

2     Access to and Control over Land

Since women in rural areas are primarily engaged in agricultural and allied sectors for sustenance, they must be given legal ownership of land and other resources such as agricultural, homestead and livestock.

Wherever it is possible, the state should redistribute land proportionally to women and men.

In Burkina Faso, each woman is provided with 3 acres of agricultural land along with knowledge, skill and inputs.

In all cases of resettlement and rehabilitation policies for project affected persons, the compensation package for land and homestead should be jointly in the name of men and women. In this context, example of Narmada Valley project in India is quoted.

Effective extension services to women should be provided with both backward and forward linkages. For example, land development packages along with supply of inputs like quality seeds, fertilisers and necessary guidance to farm based women along with marketing support for the produce should be provided. Likewise for women in fisheries/animal husbandry, there is a need for necessary linkages for their increased productivity and incomes. For example, SEWA (Self-Employed Women Association) in India has organised women in fish marketing and processing.

Special programmes to create awareness in women as well as in the society to enable women to exercise the rights of ownership.

Special focus to document traditional knowledge of women in bio-diversity especially herbal medicines to give them economic advantage in the context of globalisation.

Women’s knowledge in sustained agricultural practices should be recognised/documented and used for economic advantage.

Women should have effective say in management of common property resources like in water bodies, minor forest produce, etc. For example, PESA act in India gives extensive rights to village communities for natural resource management. There is a need to ensure women’s participation in decision making at the local level.

3       Identification of Indigenous Skills in Handicrafts and their Promotion for Enhanced Incomes

Region-specific identification of traditional skills of women in handicrafts should be promoted through special efforts by forming cooperatives and providing backward and forward linkages.

For access to raw materials, training in products standardisation and marketing is required. Example of Oman was cited in this context.

4      Enhanced Government Investment in Rural Infrastructure

Necessity to increase investment to build rural connectivity, storage facilities (cold chains), transportation for easy marketing of rural produce. Women can also be involved in organising these services for their economic empowerment.

5      Technology

Development of appropriate technologies suitable for women and their dissemination at affordable rates. All resources and development should be initiated after assessment of needs of women and field tested for efficiency and labour saving value. Example of Ghana was cited in this context.

6 Organising Women in Informal Sector as Cooperatives/Self-help Groups

Government should facilitate organisation of women into SHGs/cooperatives in the following areas:

• Poverty alleviation programmes, e.g., Grameen Bank, Bangladesh and Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) in India.

• A structured programme for mobilisation of women into groups and their training and capacity building in technical, financial and managerial issues should be undertaken. Example of ICT training centre of Malaysia was cited.

• Training should focus on book-keeping, product pricing and packaging, standardisation and marketing linkages.

• Micro-finance should be given for activities that give sustained and higher returns after an assessment of market potential.

• Use of IT/internet in facilitating marketing of women’s products in India, Bangladesh and South Africa for profit. For example, in Bangladesh, use of mobile phones credited to individuals as phone service and also as a way of finding buyers for their produce.

• Farmers-led cooperatives with adequate representation for women should also be encouraged as a policy. Examples of Japan’s agricultural women cooperatives and AMUL of India were cited.

7      Access to Easy Credit for Women Entrepreneurs

For example, Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) are giving out low interest loans with easy repayment to women and women groups in Bangladesh.

8      Recognition of Women’s Work

Women’s contribution in household and farm labour etc., should be recognised with an economic value.
For example, Japanese model of ‘Family Management Agreement’ can be replicated, wherein the family signs an agreement recognising the work of a woman.

9      Globalisation and Women

Consistent policy to diversify job opportunities from agro-based to service sector in the long term should be promoted. To achieve this, access to new employment opportunities in the era of globalisation, the ‘employability’ of women should be improved by special focus on higher and technical education. This can be achieved by education of girl-child, special incentives like scholarships and residential facilities for outstanding students. Further, reservations in law/medical/engineering/management institutes for women will create opportunities for economic empowerment by creating more women professionals in future. Example of ICT training in Malaysia and reservations in jobs and educational institutes in India are cited.

Reservation in jobs for women at managerial and decision making level in all the sectors.

10     Conclusion

What is required is enabling laws and policy framework coupled with awareness creation amongst women to exercise their rights.
 

GROUP ‘B’
 

Topic : “Political Empowerment- Role of the State”

Resource Person        :           Ms Mabel Cudjoe, Ghana
Chairperson                :           Ms Vanita Rattan Sharma, India
Secretary                     :          Ms Wafa Abdul Wahed Nasher, Yemen
 

Members : -
1 Ms Saima Shahin Sultana, Bangladesh
2 Ms Dina Mansour, Lebanon
3 Ms Lamia Sharif Al Qawasmeh, Jordan
4 Ms Suad Abdalla Ali Ramram, Sudan
5 Mr Rajeshwar Dyal, AARDO

1           Definition

“Political empowerment of women” refers to:

• a situation where women are part of the decision-making process and can play an active role in politics.

• a situation where conscious effort is made by government to put women in key decision–making position at all levels of development process so that issues of women are addressed empathetically and their political rights are exercised.

2       Problems in Political Empowerment of Women

Lack of awareness and knowledge about political rights.

Lack of interest and indifferent attitude towards political processes.

Lack of self-esteem and confidence.

Lack of political skills and training.
Lack of economic capacity and access to economic resources.

Multiple roles to perform and overburdened with domestic work.

Socio-cultural outlook - stereotype image and negative attitude of male-dominated society.

3      Recommendations

• Creation of special funds for women for political campaign for women; and to give political training to women.

In Ghana, for example, a fund known as “Women in Local Governance Fund (WILGF)” has been established in 2006 to offer training and assist women financially in politics at local level.

Funds were raised from general public and some private institutions such as banks.

Development partners such as UN agencies and American Embassy assisted in some of the training and capacity building programmes.

• Use of government machinery and NGOs to create awareness among women about their political and legal rights.

• Use of media to propagate gender sensitisation programmes.

For example, in Ghana, the Ministry of Women Affairs is running a programme in one of the radio stations on education and protection of women’s rights.

• Establishment of Units/focal points responsible for women in each organisation as practiced in Bangladesh. Women in Development (WID) focal point is assigned at all level of administration in Bangladesh.

• In schools/colleges, knowledge of political rights should be imparted and made part of the curriculum

• Periodic elections should be held in schools/colleges so that students could learn political skills and get trained in political processes.

• Reservations or quota for women in policy making and decision making at all levels.

For example, in India, the Constitution has been amended to provide one-third reservation at local bodies of self-governance to women.

In Bangladesh, one-third of the seats of local government bodies are reserved for women who are directly elected. There is also the provision of 45 seats reserved for women in Parliament. In different committees of the grassroots level including the school management committees, project implementation committees, reservation for women is mandatory.

In Philippines, local government code was enacted in 1991 for representation of women in local special bodies. The committees on health and education of legislative bodies are chaired by women in the Philippines. Even national directives have been issued for mandatory representation of women in local tourism council, local solid waste management council and local council on protection of women and children.

• Establishment of kindergarten and day care centres to assist women involved in politics.

• Post-election training and sharing of experiences with others. For example, in Ghana, some NGOs and national association of local authorities in government organise post-election training workshop for women to enable them to share experiences and to strategise for the future.

• Active involvement of women in decision-making bodies for development projects relating to women.

• Establishment of women unions to facilitate political empowerment. For example, in Sudan, Great Sudanese Women Union has branches in