All around the world, March 8 recognised as International Women’s Day represents an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women while calling for greater equality. “Make It Happen” is the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day celebration and this is very apt to encourage effective action for empowering and recognising women in all spheres of endeavours.
Rural women make significant contributions to their local economies, and to global trade, as smallholder farmers, entrepreneurs and labourers. They are responsible for producing and processing food, and feeding and caring for family members ? particularly children and the elderly. They also generate income and contribute to the overall well-being of their households.
However, in many countries, rural women continue to face discrimination in access to agricultural assets, education, health, employment and other services. Such obstacles prevent them from fully enjoying their fundamental rights and opportunities for growth. Studies have shown that rural women form the backbone of the agricultural labour force across much of the developing world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), increasing productivity on female-headed farms by 20 to 30 percent would raise national productivity by 2.5 to 4 percent in developing countries, which, in turn, could end chronic hunger for as many as 100 to 150 million people.
To address the many challenges that rural women face, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Federal Government of Nigeria financed Rural Finance Institution building project (RUFIN) is working to empower women through linkages to financial institutions to access credit to start up or expand their enterprises as well as capacity building. These trainings focused on skills acquisition, business plans, financial literacy, new technologies among others. In RUFIN interventions, women are mainstreamedto participate actively in trainings, group formations and linkages to financial institutions to improve their income generation.
Success stories from RUFIN focal states indicate that tremendous changes have been recorded with womenleveraging on their savings and /or earnings for increased productivity, contributing to higher incomes and ultimate wellbeing of the women and their households.
For example, women who were trained on the use of Gender Action Learning Systems methodology to develop business plans and market analysis showed to have gained more respect from men who have seen that power shift will also encourage the women to do more.
Even though women development varies from community to community, the small changes recorded have made impact on their social status. Their morale have been boosted and most men feel comfortable in allowing their women to contribute financially to meet the household responsibilities.
RUFIN is using the Village Savings and Credit Groups (VSCGs) model to improve internal savings and lending practice among women group in its focal states. Since the inception of the RUFIN programme in 2010, a total of N22,223,830.00 million have been mobilised by women alone through internal saving culture which is highly promoted by RUFIN and N18,445,558.00 as internal credits in the women groups.
Among RUFIN mentored groups is Ifesowapo Women group in Epe, Lagos state. The group is into fish farming, vegetable farming, piggery as their source of livelihood. These women were financial excluded as they had no micro-finance institution in their area. According to them before the intervention of RUFIN programme, they used to hire canoes and other fishing equipment for their business and were recording low returns on their investment but through the training on financial literacy and linkage to financial institution, the group have been able to access credit to grow their business and as a result their income and general livelihood have improved.
This year, the international community is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995. International Women’s Day 2015, observed on 8 March, is therefore a special occasion to celebrate achievements made since Beijing and to take action on meeting the remaining challenges to women’s empowerment and gender equality.
