Improvement of the situation of women and girls in rural areas: Report of the Secretary-General (2019)

Date: Thursday, July 25, 2019

This report provides reviews of the activities undertaken by Member States and United Nations entities to enable women and girls, especially the poorest and most marginalized, in rural areas to improve their livelihoods, well-being and resilience in a changing climate.

Guide to support the implementation of the Global Women’s Safety Framework in Rural Spaces

Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2019

UN Women, in partnership with Unilever, developed this guide to support the implementation of the “Global Women’s Safety Framework in Rural Spaces” (GWSF). The guide aims to provide support to producers on how to practically implement three main areas of the GWSF, including promising practices, case studies, and tools.

The gender gap in agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa: Causes, costs and solutions

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2019

Across sub-Saharan Africa, the agricultural sector remains critical to local and regional economies. Based on original research in five countries (Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and United Republic of Tanzania), this policy brief shows that gender gaps in agricultural productivity do not arise because women are less efficient farmers but because they experience inequitable access to agricultural inputs, including family labour, high-yield crops, pesticides, and fertilizer.

A Global Women’s Safety Framework in Rural Spaces: Informed by experience in the tea sector

Date: Friday, December 7, 2018

The new Global Women’s Safety Framework adapts UN Women’s longstanding initiative on Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for women and girls through incorporating experience in the tea sector in rural spaces. With its strong focus on prevention of violence against women and girls in public spaces, including harassment, the Framework helps to build a common understanding in the tea sector that is applicable to other commodity sectors in agricultural value chains.

Agrarian labour and resources in sub-Saharan Africa: Gender and generational change within family farms, 1980–2015

Date: Thursday, March 22, 2018

This paper traces the restructuring of rural families’ agricultural production, the intra-household division of labour, and land usage in the interim between the global oil price rise of 1979 and its precipitous fall by 2015. It was produced for UN Women’s flagship report, “Progress of the world’s women 2018”, and has been released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.

Does group farming empower rural women? The Indian experience

Date: Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Few programmes for economically empowering rural women in India have focused seriously on farming—the one occupation in which the women have most experience. This paper examines whether group farming can enable women farmers to overcome resource constraints and gain economically.

Gender and land dispossession: A comparative analysis

Date: Monday, August 21, 2017

This paper looks to our understanding of the gendered implications of rural land dispossession through a comparative analysis of five cases that were driven by different economic purposes in diverse agrarian contexts. It identifies some of the common gendered effects of land dispossession, and demonstrates ways in which the gendered consequences of land dispossession vary qualitatively across cases. It was produced for UN Women’s flagship report, World Survey on the Role of Women in Development 2014: Gender and Sustainable Development. It is now also released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.

Gender analysis of labour market outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa: Recent evidence from Cameroon and Mali

Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2017

This paper explores gender differentials in labour market outcomes covering key areas such as occupational segregation, informality, part-time work and gender wage gaps, based on data from recent labour force surveys collected in Cameroon and Mali. It was produced for UN Women’s flagship report Progress of the World’s Women 2015–2016, and is released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.

Supporting Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality in Fragile States: Guinea, Lebanon and Sudan — Research Series Summary

Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2016

This brief summarizes the Fund for Gender Equality's three-country research series which focuses on grantee case studies in Guinea, Lebanon and Sudan. It offers cross-cutting highlights from the three full-length research briefs which comprise the series, including area-based findings, good practices and lessons learned. It also offers key conclusions and recommendations that aim to help women realize greater empowerment, equality and inclusive development.

Supporting Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality in Fragile States: Research Brief — Guinea

Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Focusing on grantee case studies in Guinea, this research series offers a more nuanced look at the opportunities and barriers to women’s economic empowerment in three fragile contexts. Through area-based research, good practices and lessons learned, it outlines the local gender dimensions of fragility and offers a set of context-based recommendations to scale interventions that help women realize greater empowerment, equality and inclusive development.