Strengthening Rural Women’s Contribution To Sustainable Food Systems Through The African Continental Free Trade Area | International Day of Rural Women

“The vision of creating a prosperous, inclusive and peaceful Africa cannot be achieved without addressing these challenges that are facing rural women, who constitute a substantial proportion of our continent’s population”

— H.E. Josefa Sacko

The Youth Café and Africa Union Commission commemorated the International Rural Women Day under the theme Strengthening rural women’s contribution to sustainable food systems through the African Continental Free Trade Area. The purpose was to target different stakeholders that are involved in supporting the empowerment of rural women such as Member States, Regional Economic Communities, Academics, Financial Institutions, Development Partners, Women Right Champions, UN Agencies and Civil Society Organizations.

International Day of Rural Women was established by the United Nations General Assembly through resolution 62/136 of 18 December 2007 and it is observed on 15 October every year. This day recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

Rural women constitute one-fourth of the world’s population. They play a critical role in the rural and national economies of most of the African Union (AU) Member States, which are all the 55 African countries that are represented in the AU. In most parts, they participate in crop production and livestock care, provide food, water and fuel for their families, and engage in off-farm activities to diversify their families’ livelihoods. In addition, they carry out most of the unpaid care work in rural areas including caring for children, older persons and the sick. They are also the predominant labour providers in agri-businesses and agro-industries.

Agriculture is the most important economic sector in Africa and employs over 50 percent of the population, with women representing about 50 percent of the labour force in the sector. Even so, women and girls in rural areas suffer persisting gender inequalities such as less access to land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets, and high-value agri-food chains and obtain lower prices for their crops constraining women’s productivity, food security and nutrition contribution.

According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources and inputs could increase production on women's farms by 20-30 percent, this would reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million.

The event was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The day started with opening remarks from H. E Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural development, Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy (ARBE), AU Commission. She explained that women ensure sustainability for crop production, livestock care while still providing for their families. Women represent 50 percent of their sector in sustaining food systems in the continent, agricultural production and by extension sustaining livelihood.

Women and girls unfortunately are more often excluded from decision making in their homes and communities. If more women were included, agriculture would rise but in order to achieve this, matters around gender equality must be addressed as fundamental human rights and social development. Moreover, the gender gap needs to be addressed in order to empower women in the aspiration of a more inclusive society. Women need access to more land, credit input and finance adding agency in Africa.

The session was then officially opened by the President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, H.E Sahle-work Zewde. She highlighted the importance of the vital role women being 51% of the population in Africa, play in the agricultural sector and are often unsung heroes who do not reap neither benefits nor compliments from their hard work. It was also established that giving priority to women is not an option but a necessity.

Despite Ethiopia being predominantly rural with 78 percent living remotely as of 2020, the government has formulated several laws and policies to promote gender equality demonstrated in article 35 of their constitution.

On the principle of “Leaving no one behind” there is a need for a Policy on Women in Agriculture, which will prioritize laws on access to and control on productive resources and easing the burden of work on women.

“ You cannot thrive when you ignore the majority of the population”

— H.E Sahle Work Zewde

African Union aims to address the gender imbalance in the agri-food sector by implementing various protocols and policies, these include The Agenda 2063 which emphasizes the need for gender equality, parity and women’s empowerment, with a specific emphasis on ensuring that rural women have access to productive assets, such as land, credit, inputs and financial services and The 2014 Malabo Declaration designed to promote women’s participation in agri-business and value chain. Its associated evaluation frameworks include a target of 20 percent of empowered rural women.

Others are the AU Gender Strategy 2018-2028 which builds on already existing commitments and targets focusing on rural women economically, builds their resilience and protection, improves gender-enabling environment, and reinforces women’s voice, leadership, and visibility.

It emphasizes a transformative approach to empower women especially Rural Women and the Declaration of “2015, Year of Women’s Empowerment and Development towards Africa’s Agenda 2063” promotes women’s access to productive resources; mechanization; technological innovation; education and skills development. It also calls upon financial institutions to have a minimum quota of 50 percent to finance women, in order for them to grow their businesses from micro to macro level.

Apart from that, the African Development Bank Group has a gender strategy (2021-2025) which aims to invest in African women thus accelerating growth and economic prosperity in the continent. Given that 50 percent of the African population are female and educated, resources, opportunities, and decision-making are still heavily swayed towards men, in all sectors.

Regarding agriculture, female smallholder farmers face a 20-30 percent productivity gap compared to their male counterparts. Therefore if we are able to close the gender gap in food and agriculture which is what generates income for most African women in rural areas, there would be a massive development impact, including the raise of crop production by 19 percent, boost in agricultural and overall GDP and elevating millions of people from poverty.

There are programs being established to aid rural women and minimize the gender imbalance in Africa, for example, the African Development Bank invests in special initiatives to support women’s empowerment and gender equality, more specifically access to finance through the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative.

Similarly, The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), based on it’s strategic plan seeks to achieve gender equality by considering three dimensions: economic empowerment, participation in decision-making and improved well-being.

IFAD and its partners such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN, are working to address issues that sustain women’s poverty and unequal status. FAO is a very essential partner in its strategy for the advancement of women in the rural areas. The cooperation is heavily focused on women’s access to land and property in collaboration with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women ( CEDAW).

“Retire the hand-held hoe to the museum”, this was a statement made 2 years ago during a meeting in Burkina Faso, which calls for increase in mechanization, digitalization and industrialization, to help the women in rural areas who are the backbone of development in Africa. Considerably, matters around skill education were raised by multiple speakers such as Rwandese Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Gerardine Mukeshimana. She explained that women gain more confidence as they acquire more access to information.

“What men can do, women can too!”

All the speakers reiterated the importance of women in rural areas and encouraged more support to these women in order to improve Africa's agricultural development. Another crucial point which was repeated was the hard work needed to implement and execute programs and projects in order to monitor how Agenda’s are reached. The importance of getting instruments into the hands of women and youth, these two groups go hand in hand and need the required exceptions.

Strategy for unlocking access to women was part of the discussion, this includes stressing the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA-PAP 2, 2021-2030) which is from February 2021, improving access to infrastructure in rural areas, i.e. improving transport, ICT, water and promoting sustainability.

In addition to this Dr. Amani Abou - Zeid, the Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission, shared the importance of clean energy. 70 percent of the African population do not have access to clean energy, many are still cooking using traditional methods which negatively affect women and girls as this is one of their societal duties. Women and men experience energy differently, women have 3 to 5 times as much as men. Women need safe ways to energy to avoid injuries and poor health therefore she advocated for the need for renewable energy and natural gas to give access to clean cooking methods.

The virtual event came to a close with a positive and hopeful energy. For all this to come into play we have to work with our governments, H.E Thelma Awori stated. She explained that for transformation to occur throughout the whole continent each member state needs to play their part. Dr. Monique Nsanzabanawa concluded that by monitoring and measuring progress via successful implementation of programs the next meeting will have people singing a different tune. “We are all together going to make it happen” she concluded in her closing statement.

Our Key Takeaways as The Youth Café is that women are the backbone of the rural economy. Women who are able to earn an income, and control their earnings means their families will benefit. However, women in the rural area are particularly set back in effectively carrying out their work activities. For transformation to occur throughout the whole continent of Africa each member state needs to play their part in ensuring women empowerment.

The Youth Café works with young men and women around Africa as a trailblazer in advancing youth-led approaches toward achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience and transformative change.