Volume 36, No. 4 ISSN 0149-3434 www.ifdc.org
IFDC An update on the work and progress of IFDC
IFDC Core Competency: Gender Equity is Key to Feeding the Hungry Women make up the vast majority of the world’s poor and more than half of the world’s illiterates are women. Also girls represent the majority of school-age children not in school. Caretakers of the family, women bear much of the responsibility for meeting basic needs, but they have more difficulty accessing the information and resources necessary to care for their families. IFDC staff members believe that building women’s capabilities and addressing gender inequality are crucial to transforming the lives of poor women and their families. When women are empowered, society benefits – family members are healthier, more children are able to go to school, agricultural productivity improves and incomes increase. “At least half of the planet’s 900 million subsistence farmers are women. The progress in helping these women do what they do better is far too slow,” said Margaret Catley-Carlson, patron of the Global Water Partnership and member of the IFDC board of directors. “Property issues impede her ability to get credit; social and decisional systems exclude her; and the basics of life – water and primary education – are too often not at hand. Fortunately, there is a whole new array of mechanisms that show promise: using crops as an asset for credit; building networks that must reach the rural farmer if the network itself is to thrive; and getting seeds, agro-inputs and market access information to her. These things will help. Political leaders could help more.”
Bangladeshi women attend a training workshop to become better farmers and entrepreneurs.
EurAsia Division
IFDC promotes gender equity in its projects, trainings and policy development. In Bangladesh, the Improved Livelihood for Sidr-Affected Rice Farmers (ILSAFARM) project was gendersensitive. Even though the vast majority of farm households are headed by men, ILSAFARM set a target of 10 percent female participation for all activities. By project’s end in December 2010,
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