DEVELOPMENT: Rural Women the Most Neglected, Says UN Study

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 1999 (IPS) - Rural women are more productive than their male counterparts, but still remain the most neglected in society, according to a UN report released Tuesday.

The 13-page study, titled ‘Improvement of the Situation of Women in Rural Areas,’ says that women make the most significant contributions to rural economies despite the fact they are steeped in poverty and lack productive assets and resources.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, women contribute an average of 70 percent of the total labour expended in food production for the household and for trade. Nevertheless, rural women are poorer than men, and have lower levels of literacy, education, health and nutrition.

In Asia, women account for some 50 percent of agricultural production, while in Latin America and the Caribbean they contribute an average of 40 percent.

In all of these regions, the report points out, there is also “significant underreporting” of women’s participation in the agricultural sector.

“By not counting the unpaid work of women on family farms, official figures have consistently undervalued the contribution of women to agricultural production,” the study notes.

Further, cultural attitudes in some regions have made men reluctant to acknowledge the economic activities of their wives and daughters outside the house, the report contends.

Addressing the annual meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva Monday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called upon the international community to do more to advance the prospects of women.

“Women are among the poorest of the poor,” he said. “They work long days, walk long distances to fetch water and must find time and energy for informal sector activities which are their only source of income. Their jobs are truly never done.”

Annan said that investments in women – and especially in the education of women and girls – are the key to sustainable development, and bring the greatest dividends to families, communities and entire societies.

“By right and by reason, women must have equal opportunities,” Annan asserted, “To put in another way, you can no more be half equal than half free.”

The secretary-general said that the total additional investment for universal access to basic social services – education, health, nutrition, reproductive health, family planning, safe water and sanitation – would be about 40 billion dollars per year.

“That is less than what Europeans spend on cigarettes, and one- tenth of the world trade in illegal drugs,” he added.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn told delegates that providing equal rights to women was vital for the eradication of poverty, and that stable economic growth could not be achieved without providing voting rights and job opportunities to the world’s three billion women.

Wolfensohn argued that assets in women’s hands should be protected, and further social assets must be provided to them.

In detailing women’s contributions in the rural sector, the UN study points out that the proportion of African women in the economically-active labour force ranges from 48 percent in Burkina Faso to 73 percent in the Republic of Congo.

In Asia, women constitute 46 percent of the agricultural labour force in Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines, 35 percent in Malaysia, 54 percent in Indonesia and more than 60 percent in Thailand.

The study says that Asia has also experienced a steady increase in female employment in the manufacturing sector since the process of export-led industrialisation began.

In the Pacific, women play a dominant role in fisheries in food marketing, as well as in the labour-intensive processing of cash crops such as palm oil, copra, coconut oil, vanilla, coffee and cocoa. In Papua New Guinea, women make up 71 percent of the agricultural sector, and in Fiji they constitute about 38 percent, according to the report.

In most Middle Eastern and North African countries, women play a major role in agriculture. Fifty-five percent of unpaid agricultural labour in Turkey is performed by women, compared to 53 percent in Morocco, 51 percent in Egypt, 41 percent in Lebanon, 31 percent in Iraq and 28 percent in Mauritania.

“The full and equal participation of women in rural institutions and decision-making, and specific measures to improve the status of women, are still critical to any strategy aimed at the improvement of the situation of rural women,” the study says.