Imperatives of International Day of Rural Women, girls

By Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu

The UN General Assembly, in its resolution 62/16 of December 18, 2007, designated October 15 as International Day of Rural Women to recognise and celebrate the achievements and struggles of the female gender toward improving their lives, their families’ and communities.

The day is annually celebrated around the globe to bring to the fore, the critical roles and contributions of rural women, including indigenous women, and has  “Rural Women Cultivating Good Food for All” as its theme for 2021.

The contributions of women are seen in the crucial roles they play in sustaining rural households, accounting for a substantial proportion of the agriculture labour force, including informal work, and performing the bulk of unpaid care and domestic work.

In most African countries, including Nigeria, even when rural women farmers are productive and enterprising as their male counterparts, they are less able to access land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets, and high-value agrifood chains and obtain lower prices for their crops.

Structural barriers and discriminatory social norms have also continued to constrain women’s decision-making power and political participation in rural households and communities, hence, women and girls in rural areas lack equal access to resources and assets.

Globally, with few exceptions, every gender and development indicator for which data is available reveals that rural women fare worse than rural men and urban women, and that they disproportionately experience poverty, exclusion and the effects of climate change.

On what rural African women and girls can gain from the commemoration of the International Rural Women Day, the African Union Commission (AUC) Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy (DARBE), organised a virtual meeting on Oct. 15 to celebrate women, where participants agreed that rural women constitute one-fourth of the world’s population.

The African Union also agreed that rural women play critical roles in national economies of most African countries as they engage in crop production, livestock care, fetch fuel and water for families, predominantly labour providers in agri-businesses and agro-industries, and as such, they should be recognised and be included in decision-making processes at all levels of governance and in rural settings.

The union says economic empowerment of rural women is key, and that if given equal access to productive resources, agriculture yields will rise and will substantially reduce hunger in Africa.

On its part, UN Women highlighted the roles played by rural women and girls in sustaining communities, societies and nations.

In Nigeria, late Maryam Babangida, wife of former President Ibrahim Babangida, deepened the quest for improved living conditions for rural women and girls through the launch of the Better Life Programme for the (African) Rural Woman in 1987.

Prior to the launch, Maryam Babangida held consultations with stakeholders such as the Directorate for Food and Rural Infrastructure and women organisations about economic and social constraints affecting rural women after visiting Igbologun and Ilado-Odo villages in Lagos in 1986, where she found out that the villages had no clean water and power distribution infrastructure and decided that actions should be directed toward rural development.

The objectives of the programme were to reduce maternal and child mortality by increasing basic healthcare facilities for women, provide income generating opportunities in agriculture and cottage industries, to integrate rural women into national development plans and develop education training for women.

However, the programme did not go far and had to stop due to change in government in the country.

As women from all walks of life converged on Abuja on Oct. 15 to mark the rural women day and launch of the film, the Minister for Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, lamented that the problems of rural women were compounded by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said they play catalytic roles toward achieving  transformational economic, environmental and social changes required for sustainable development.

“Rural women and girls ensure food production and form a large proportion in agricultural workforce, yet they face persistent cultural and structural constraints that prevent them from enjoying their human rights and hamper efforts to improve their lives as well as others around them.”

She said the ministry is implementing the second phase of Presidential National Cooking Gas Project Cylinders distribution and economic tree planting project in additional 15 states to reduce deforestation, drudgery and health hazards among rural women.

Tallen  called on public-spirited individuals and organisations to support digital technology, improved and better amenities for rural women with a view to reducing poverty and enhance their status.

She urged affluent women to assist fellow women, especially those in rural areas, to have better lives.

There are many things government can do to help rural women and girls to enjoy better lives, as other citizens and NGOs also offer assistance to uplift their status.

Countries can support rural households, especially women and girls, to cope with high food prices by putting in place or expanding food assistance and social safety net programmes that take into consideration men and women’s different roles and responsibilities within households and the different behaviours they adopt in times of crisis.

Through food assistance schemes, governments can provide households with food rations to compensate for lacking food supplies. This includes giving households food stamps or vouchers that people can exchange for food, implementing school feeding programmes where meals are given to children in school, and food-for-work programmes where people are given food rations in exchange for work on public projects like building roads.

Food assistance programmes are advantageous for rural women who are traditionally responsible for obtaining food and ensuring good nutrition for the family. These programmes may reduce women’s need to take on additional work to earn more income to buy food and, in some cases, increase their decision-making power in the household.

School feeding schemes are also helpful because they motivate parents to keep children in school in times of crises, ensuring that they receive the nutrients they need and maintaining their chances at better opportunities later in life. These schemes are particularly important for girls, who tend to be pulled out of school before boys.

By building programmes that take into consideration rural women and men’s differentiated needs and resources, governments can better strengthen rural communities’ resilience and ability to cope with high food prices and food price sparks in the long run, reducing the burden on rural women and girls, which at the end, will help them to do other things toward achieving their desires in life.   (NANFeature)