A good example covering many of the dimensions is the experience of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), which is an Indian membership-based trade union. In 2009, the organization had 1, 256 million members across 9 states with over 50% of its membership in Gujarat. While it started mainly in urban areas, over time it has intensified its activities in rural areas. In 2009, two third of SEWA’s membership is from the rural areas out of which 54% of the members are engaged in agriculture. SEWA‘s main goal is to organize women for full employment and self reliance.
SEWA relies on an integrated and comprehensive approach, addressing the numerous constraints that small-scale and marginalized women farmers face. SEWA's set of activities seeks to simultaneously increase farmers’ economic, human and social capital and enable them to overcome poverty and exclusion.
Taking as example the JFFLS experience, which I have described in the forum, there can be activities that bring together boys and girls. This involves the creation of gender-equal attitudes by enabling girls and boys to exercise the same roles and responsibilities and by developing their capacities to critically assess, understand and decide upon their livelihoods and their own lives. It is mainly a participatory learning environment in which children are encouraged to boys change roles during role play activities. It has to be ensured that girls and boys share tasks in the learning field while fostering the exchange of ideas. It is also expected that families and the community as a whole will benefit from this type of activities, as children bring back home what they have learned in the school.
To the 3rd point I would add: Research based on sound sex-disaggregated data and analysis, to better understand gendered dynamics in rural employment, is a prerequisite for effective policy design. More investment in gender-disaggregated data is crucial to better understand many of the issues pointed out in this forum. This applies especially for rural areas and work in agriculture. Better data would contribute to a better analysis of the gender-differences in access to and ownership of productive assets and how this relates with employment opportunities in rural areas.
I agree with these recommendations. I would add some additional things to the 1st point, mostly thinking of rural areas: - access of women to labour-saving technologies should also be encouraged; - there should be also programmes to foster associations of female producers to facilitate access to resources (especially land and credit), and to markets; in turn, collective action by women groups may also encourage participation in decision-making processes; - promote women's access to well-designed extension services.
The FAO Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) programme has proved successful in several developing countries. JFFLS takes an innovative approach to extra curricular activities in order to empower youth through increasing self-esteem and life-business skills. Using the agriculture growing calendar as a model for life, youth learn agricultural skills while developing corresponding life-business lessons (e.g. setting goals, importance of personal space for growth, and teamwork).
Both girls and boys are equally encouraged to participate and JFFLs uses gender-sensitive learning materials and activities. Local women’s cooperatives are involved to prepare nutritious meals for the participants. A successful pilot phase facilitates the upscaling the programme to other communities, while opening possibilities to a revision of national curricula to include some of the JFFLS training modules.
There is also an employment component for JFFLS graduates through the creation of Young Farmers Associations and Cooperatives. Gender aspects are also taken into account at this stage to facilitate gender equality in access to productive activities.
In fact, in rural areas, boys and girls are likely to learn many skills out of the school system through their engagement in family activities, mainly in subsistence farming. There are a gender differences arising from relatively more involvement of boys in productive activities and while girls being more engaged in household chores. This contributes to perpetuate certain types of gendered roles in terms of access to employment later on.
Training programmes for teachers should also be gender-sensitive.
International figures report that main achievements concentrate at primary school levels. A main concern becomes transition to secondary and post-education levels, this is especially challenging for girls and young women, especially in rural areas, who are more likely to encounter a number of barriers in accessing more advanced stages of education and even vocational training. It is not only about providing financial resources (e.g., vouchers, scholarships), but also about distance and time availability.
As mentioned in this forum, restricted mobility (due to cultural barriers, but also due to responsibilities within the household) may prevent rural young women of attending training facilities in distant locations, as well as more-time demanding training programmes. That leads to a gender bias in participation to certain programmes that give access to certain occupations later on.
Yes, it is a key aspect. Follow-up, and monitoring, of the implementation is important as well. Nation-wide legislation should be complemented by programmes and policies that aim at fostering gender equality by taking due account of existing differences in urban vs rural needs.
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