FAO project scaled up rural women’s empowerment

Women living in rural areas of Tajikistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan are a large portion of the population and play vital roles in both farming and non-farming activities. Among the many challenges they face are gender-based barriers that affect their efforts to build resilient livelihoods. Poor social and physical infrastructure, climate variability (which affects crop yields and prices) and structural inequalities widen gender gaps and limit rural women’s access to economic opportunities.

For the past three years, the FAO–Türkiye Partnership Programme on Food and Agriculture has helped these women gain access to technical skills and equipment and has guided responsible institutions to ensure that policies and practices in agriculture and forestry are aware and responsive to the needs and priorities of rural women.

Today, the project concluded with a final conference in Ankara, Türkiye. Attendees shared reflections on the project’s key achievements and lessons learned that can contribute to the sustainability and promotion of gender-responsive approaches in agriculture policies and practices.

Participants from ministries of agriculture and forestry, the gender expert community and elsewhere shared insights into the project results, focusing on efforts to address the needs of rural women, including those living in forest-dependent communities. They also recounted the best practices and lessons learned from all three countries and discussed the sustainability of project activities. A critical component and important legacy of the project was the development of gender-specific knowledge to inform evidence-based policies and practices.

“In translating into practice the fundamental principle of the United Nations ‘leave no one behind’, we need to be mindful that gender as a social construct leads to the biggest divides in the fabric of households, communities and societies,” said Dono Abdurazakova, FAO senior gender and social protection adviser. “But ‘women’ are also not a homogenous category, and the project’s efforts have been targeted and specific to reach those rural women who are the neediest.”

During the project, gender-disaggregated data were collected from three pilot regions of Türkiye, and analyses were conducted from a gender perspective on the honey, figs and dairy value chains. The project also provided training for rural women and women’s cooperatives. Equipment provided by the project and additional consultations from technical specialists helped women enhance their income-generation skills. A similar approach was undertaken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. A recent FAO study showed that facilitating rural women’s access to technical knowledge, information and skills can lead to improved livelihoods and nutrition in their households and communities. 

The project “Leaving no one behind: greater involvement and empowerment of rural women in Türkiye and Central Asia” was implemented from 2022 to 2024.