Harnessing the Potential of Women in the Fight Against Poverty

How to reduce inequalities and IFAD’s

Perspective
advance the status of rural women

...through improved access to:

Productive resources

Participation in rural
institutions and decision-making

Basic services and rural

infrastructure
© IFAD

Why do it? What are the challenges? The way ahead

A root cause of poverty: the imbalance between...

What rural women have:

2% of land
What rural women do: 5% extension
services
Family care 15% parliamentary
Domestic work seats
Marginal access to
Agricultural formal credit
production Less education
Income - generation Fewer rights
Management of
household food
security
Natural resources
management
 Reducing inequalities - Empowering women...

Nutrition Maternal
mortality
Gender equality/ Infant
women’s mortality
empowerment

Malaria and
other diseases

Water
and sanitation
ODA for Universal
basic primary education
services Income growth

…an opportunity, and an essential condition for achieving the

Millennium Development Goals
Achieving the MDG, empowering women

Global challenges:

More resources, but also

...better planned and better focused

Turning globalization into an opportunity

and not a risk

Mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on

women

More of the same is not enough

Achieving the MDG, empowering women

IFAD’s achievements:
Economic empowerment
Organization and decision-making

Improved living conditions

IFAD’s challenges:
Reinforcing field impact

…and achieving a broader catalytic effect

through:
advocacy
policy dialogue
partnerships
Achieving the MDG and empowering rural women - Critical issues:

1. Women’s access to productive resources

A matter of

• Legal and policy frameworks

but also...

• Gender roles and culture

• Social recognition of women’s

rights © IFAD

• Enabling conditions
Achieving the MDG and empowering rural women - Critical issues:

2. Women’s participation and decision-making

A matter of

• Legal and policy frameworks

• Gender roles and culture

• Quotas?

• Confidence
© IFAD
• Women’s time

• Organization Beyond groups to broader

coalitions and sustainable
local institutions
Achieving the MDG and empowering rural women - Critical issues:

3. Lack of basic services and rural infrastructure

• A constraint for rural people

• A special burden for women

and girls

• A limiting factor for women’s

advancement

• A central MDG concern © IFAD

(22/49 indicators)

But will commitments materialize?

 How to reduce inequalities and IFAD’s
Perspective
advance the status of rural women

...through improved access to:

Productive resources

Participation in rural
institutions and decision-making

Basic services and rural

infrastructure
© IFAD
 The way ahead:
key questions...

• Which new development approaches?

• What issues to address in advocacy

and policy dialogue?

• How to engage men as champions of

women’s empowerment?

© ASIA
 © IFAD

End