Rural Women's Leadership in Agriculture and NRM Scoping Studies:

Rural Women's Leadership in Agriculture and NRM Scoping Studies: Summary Report

Submitted by Jeannette Gurung

Four scoping studies in four countries of Africa and Asia were conducted by WOCAN consultants between September and October 2008 as part of the design phase for a new program to be implemented by IFAD, entitled the Rural Women's Leadership Program. The purpose of this scoping exercise was to gather background information on existing resources for women's leadership in the agriculture and natural resource management sectors, with in- depth information on the situation of women in Farmer Organizations in Nepal, India, South Africa and the Philippines. The scoping work will be used to choose a few pilot countries for the first phase of the program.
This new program is to be a multi-donor funded program to support capacity building of women in producers' organizations, from the grassroots to the national level, and to promote representation and inclusiveness of these organizations in strategic policy dialogues and negotiation arena at the national, regional and global levels. The program's aim is to give a stronger voice and policy influence role to grassroots women by building their capacity to express themselves, choose leaders appropriately and hold them accountable; by expanding the presence of women leaders in rural organization at all levels and developing their leadership skills.

Methodology
Consultants used literature reviews, interviews and observations to gather data; when time allowed it, they also visited key groups of women farmers. Four general types of questions were addressed:

1. What is the socio-economic and political condition of women farmers?

2. Who are existing national women Farmer Organizations and NGO support groups for rural women?

3. Within both the national women Farmer Organizations and NGO support groups: what services do they provide, what is their reach, what are their capacities for gender and development, how do they build leadership of women, and what are their needs for building women's leadership?

4. What are the available resources (persons, projects, programs) that respond to the needs for building capacities of women leaders for dialogue, negotiation and advocacy?

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