At dawn of post-2015 agenda, we cannot afford to leave rural women behind — Lakshmi Puri

Excellencies,

Distinguished panelists,

Distinguished delegates,

Dear colleagues,

I would like to start by thanking the co-chairs of this panel, who I know are both much committed to gender equality and the empowerment of women and to the issue that we are here to discuss as we mark a very significant United Nations observance of the International Day of Rural Women.

Rural women comprise more than one quarter of the total world population. This discussion is about them, about the 500 million women who live below the poverty line or in extreme poverty in rural areas. It is also about rural women who greatly contribute to the economy, to food security, to the elimination of poverty and to sustainable development in a very effective way.

I will focus on the problematic and also on how we shall address the situation of rural women on the ground and in the context of the post-2015 development agenda.

There is an increased recognition of the pivotal role that rural women play in rural economies of both developed and developing countries — especially through their contributions to addressing hunger, malnutrition and poverty. The Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action both affirm the important contribution of women in sustainable development.

We have also seen this increased recognition in the General Assembly’s resolutions on the “Improvement of the situation of women in rural areas,” adopted in its sixty-sixth session in 2011 and in its sixty-eighth session in 2013. Through these resolutions, the General Assembly called on Member States, UN agencies, civil society and all stakeholders to attach greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women — including indigenous women — in their national, regional and global development strategies.

Since 2008, the United Nations has observed the International Day of Rural Women as a testament to “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

In most parts of the developing world, rural women 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 vital functions in caring for children, older persons and the sick.

Yet, despite the enormous value added through their heavy workload both in and outside of the household — including their significant agricultural production — rural women continue to face exceptional challenges and obstacles to the fulfilment of their human rights, including the right to development.

Rural women continue to be dependent on natural resources and agriculture for their livelihoods. They are the poorest populations in developing countries. And yet they constitute over 40 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries.

Also, rural women tend to be negatively affected by the burden of unpaid care work and lack of access to markets, finance, social protection and services; adequate sanitation, skills and training; and importantly, access to and control over land. Also, rural women are particularly vulnerable to social norms and harmful traditional practices and beliefs that undermine their integrity, and maintain gender-based violence and inequitable gender power relations.

These challenges and obstacles contribute to the reproduction of their resource and time poverty. Without interventions that support rural women’s agency and labour, this vicious cycle risks being transferred to coming generations. So it is not just about rural women’s human rights but also on their critical contribution to sustainable development.

We must face these persistent challenges by ensuring that rural women are provided access to, and control over, productive agricultural and natural resources. Given that 76 per cent of the extreme poor live in rural areas, this will not only economically empower rural women but also contribute to the decline in world hunger and overall rural poverty.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, this month of October has been dedicated to women and poverty, one of the 12 critical areas of focus. This coincides perfectly with the agenda before us today, in the current junction of definition of the post-2015 development agenda, which provides us the opportunity to take stock on progress made and remaining challenges, but also to revise and understand what has worked and in which good practices we could build on.

So, as we celebrate this year’s International Day of Rural Women — given the context of the eve of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target date, the dawning of a new post-2015 development agenda, and the 20-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action — we must ensure that when we look back 15 years from now we can celebrate that we did not leave rural women behind.

It is critical for us to take this historic opportunity of the convergence of these intergovernmental processes to strategize on: “What can we do to ensure that rural women are empowered through the post-2015 development agenda?”

First, the empowerment of rural women should be addressed from a broad development perspective. There is evidence that 100 million people could be lifted out of poverty if rural women had the same access to productive resources as men. Productivity on women’s farms would increase up to 30 per cent. The number of hungry people would drop by as much as 17 per cent — an impact that translates into improvements for as many as 150 million women and men, girls and boys. Therefore, not only are rural women critical to ensuring sustainable development, but also sustainable development will be jeopardized as long as rural women are not empowered.

Second, we must work together with Member States and all national development partners to ensure the design and implementation of interventions with positive impacts on rural women. And we must ensure that adequate investment is allocated in the empowerment of rural women, not only as a matter of gender equality, but as a key in advancing the broader development goals.

As the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has indicated in various fora, investments in agriculture in developing countries need to increase by 50 per cent by 2050 to feed growing populations. But in order to help effectively achieve greater food security, investments need to take into consideration the specific needs of women in agriculture, and all policies in the agricultural sector need to be gender sensitive and take into account the particular demands of men and women. It is very clear that with enhanced capabilities and decision-making power, and greater access to land and resources, the potential for rural women to contribute to greater food and nutrition security can be guaranteed.

At UN Women we endorse these potentially critical investments in:

• Development of relevant gender-sensitive infrastructure to support health, energy, and water services, and sustainable and accessible transportation;
• Enabling policy environments for women-friendly markets that attract and support rural women’s participation, especially agricultural markets;
• Promoting self-help groups and cooperatives that enable women’s access to income;
• Alleviating rural women’s unpaid care burdens by appropriately valuing, reducing and redistributing care work;
• Providing pathways to increased women’s political participation;
• Enabling full access and rights to secure land tenure, be it through ownership, inheritance, usufruct and/or common property; and, finally, although not least,
• Rural women’s capacities, through formal and informal education and training, and improving their access to information that is vital for their lives and livelihoods.
• And we should not forget about landless women in rural areas and the need to expand their opportunities to lease or purchase land, and to take on wage employment in rural areas.
• We also need to step up our efforts to ensure rural women’s participation in decision-making fora at all levels.

In the intergovernmental discussions for the definition of the post-2015 has not only recommended the inclusion of a gender equality goal but also to mainstream gender within the development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Open Working Group (OWG) other goals. Relevant to the discussion today, in Goal 1 — “End of poverty in all forms everywhere” — the OWG included a target on: “by 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial resources, including microfinances.”

Also, on Goal 2 — “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” — there is a specific recommendation for, “by 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets, and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.

It is critical that these targets and others that are relevant to the empowerment of rural women are finally integrated into the new Sustainable Development Goals. It is also critical to ensuring the identification of specific means of implementation, including the adequate national and foreign resource mobilization and allocation in each issue area defined in support of rural women, as well as setting up mechanisms that hold

Member States and stakeholders accountable for their effective delivery. As a global community, we are committed to rural women’s economic empowerment. But we must also take on the requisite tasks and actions that will allow rural women to realize their rights and livelihoods.

Thank you.

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