Did you know that rural women are still workers for men?

“Rural women play a key role in supporting their households and communities in achieving food and nutrition security, generating income and improving rural livelihoods and overall well- being” (Rural women and the millennium development goals).  However, rural women in developing countries  are relegated to labour intensive activities, are given little  access to resources , are not involved in the decision making process  but their income, the income they generate,  goes into men’s pocket.   Evidence shows that if  women had access to the same productive resources  as  men  women could:

• raise the total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5 to 4%
• reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12 to 17%
• increase the yields on their farms by 20 to 30% .

This means that by addressing gender inequalities, women could  play a crucial role in reducing   poverty and paving the way towards IFAD commitment to lift 80 million rural people out of poverty by 2015.  But how can we support  rural women  and help them to overcome  those persistent social and structural constraints ? How can IFAD projects  better address gender inequalities? We have a new policy that places gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of our ambitious  strategic plans for reducing poverty   and this week is the gender training week;  a golden opportunity for  IFAD and FAO colleagues to work together on case studies using  innovative approaches and  participatory tools.

The training  is  divided in modular sessions  on gender in key thematic areas and you can join one or more sessions . Yesterday we  focused on targeting and gender strategy ,  gender and poverty reduction issues and  gender along the value chain and we learned that:
• gender division of labour along the value chain is not equal
• women tend to trade on local market while men tend to trade on a larger scale
• women  grow crops, men sell
• women engagement in marketing is confined to small volumes  while men dominate the large volumes
• once the volume to be marketed becomes sizable, the activity becomes male-dominated
• gender equality requires a cultural change of both men and women
• gender balance does not mean that  there is no space for men, gender balance is about  equal gender division of labour along the value chain and equal opportunities.
• gender inequalities can be addressed  by strengthening the role of women
• gender inequalities can be addressed by engaging men. Watch the video “'Mapping the road to change, action learning for gender justice in Western Uganda' ” .  Men  can change!

The training is still on, join one of the coming session and contribute to the discussion.

IFAD, ILC and CTA learning event on participatory mapping

Over 50 rural development practitioners from all over the world and a multitude of organization gathered at IFAD this morning for the learning event on participatory mapping.

The event was jointly organized by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Land Coalition (ILC) and Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).

We kicked off the morning session with a presentation by Giacomo Rambaldi who gave an overview of the opportunities and challenges of participatory mapping. In his presentation Giacomo pointed out that:

• participatory mapping is based on spatial local knowledge


• participatory mapping is good for awareness building, cross generational transfer of knowledge + good governance


• spatial knowledge cannot be captured by satellite


• recently smart phones are used to support participatory mapping


• importance of understanding who is in control of the process? who has visual access? what's left with those who supported the mapping?

Giacomo informed the participants that shortly IFAD and CTA will be releasing the "Training kit on participatory spatial information management and communication".

We then watched an inspiring video entitled " mapping our culture, mapping our future". The video showed how communities use participatory mapping to have their voices heard. It was a great example of cross culture and cross continent knowledge sharing. We watch African communities exchanging their experience with their Latin American brothers and sisters. It was an inspiration piece of exchange between different cultures and ethnicities.

For me, the take home messages from video were:

• that fact that the final step of participatory mapping is to look into the future
• participatory mapping gives indigenous groups sense of community and ownership of the future
• participatory mapping empowers local communities to negotiate at peer 2 peer level and gives the voiceless a voice

As I am writing this blogpost, the participants are busy doing a map. I must say, there is a certain buzz in the room. Great conversation, laughter, but also at times some tension. The group is realizing the challenges of engaging in participatory mapping and at the same time are seeing the value of this tool.

This afternoon, we'll have a speed geeking exercise and a chat show. Stay tuned on the blog and follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ifadnews or follow hastag #pmapping