CBC Radio’s The Current' interviews a panel of experts on the subject of women farmers. Features Kenyan farmer Margaret Jwajiro and Ramata Thioune, Senior Program Officer for IDRC’s Women's Rights and Citizenship program (go to part 3).   Related items:   IDRC in Senegal   Publication: Land Tenure, Gender and Globalization – Research and Analysis from Africa, Asia, and Latin America

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To celebrate International Women’s Day, IDRC held two public panels on March 9 at its head office in Ottawa. The event was hosted by IDRC’s Women’s Rights and Citizenship (WRC) and Rural Poverty and Environment programs, and Staff Association. More than 200 people attended the event that focused on women’s economic vulnerability in the current global financial crisis, and women’s right and access to land in Africa.

 

Building on IDRC’s participation in the 54^th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the panels provided a forum for IDRC’s partners to present their research findings and policy recommendations linked to this year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All.”  

 

Margaret Biggs, president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and a member of IDRC’s Board of Governors

In her opening remarks, Margaret Biggs, president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and a member of IDRC’s Board of Governors, said that since the passing of the United Nations Beijing Declaration in 1995, “There has been notable advancement in gender equality in developing countries, especially in education. More girls than ever before are in school.” However, as Biggs pointed out, there is still room for improvement and she cited the enduring collaboration between CIDA and IDRC to bring rigorous research and development results together to improve the quality of life for women and girls.

 

 

Panellists Devaki Jain and Diane Elson, addressed the effects of the current global recession on women in developing countries. They presented the Casablanca Dreamers’ 7-point economic program to lift women out of poverty. The Casablanca Dreamers is an initiative of women scholars, thinkers, and activists from developing countries seeking to empower women. “We want growth that bubbles up rather than trickles down,” said Elson.  

 

Jain believes that to put this growth into motion, the focus needs to shift from crisis management to developing a new purpose for international agencies. “I think there’s a crying need to reconstruct the feminist development agenda. . .” She raised the idea of setting up a women’s commission or global think tank that could craft a meaningful development agenda to meet the needs of women in developing countries.

 

 

Rawwida Baksh, WRC’s program leader, moderated the first panel. She pointed out that it is as important to look at the rights of girls as the rights of women. “When we talk about women’s rights, we tend to assume that we’re also talking about girl’s rights. Very often we’re not.”

 

Sarah Hendricks, global gender advisor of Plan International Canada, spoke about how the global financial crisis has affected opportunities for girls and young women. Drawing on key elements in Plan’s Because I am a Girl report, Hendricks highlighted the importance of investing in economic and educational opportunities for girls, to provide them with the skills they need to participate in the global economy: business know-how, life skills, and technology-based education. She also argued that girls and young women need increased access and control over land and property, assets that could help them weather economic shocks and eventually access credit and invest in small businesses.

 

 

The second panel looked at women’s access to land in developing countries. Researcher Fatou Diop of the Université Gaston Berger Saint Louis in Senegal spoke of the factors that affect women’s access to land, such as culture and religion.
 

Ritu Verma, director and senior researcher of Out of the Box Research and Action in South Africa explained how land is more than a resource. Land also has social, cultural, spiritual, and political meanings, she said. “When I was doing field research in Kenya, a woman farmer said to me ‘don’t you know that without land, you are nobody?’”

 

A new book Land Tenure, Gender, and Globalization, co-published by IDRC and Zubaan books, was launched during the panel. A central focus of the book is its examination of how changes in land use and tenure, associated with globalization, are affecting rural women. Dzodzi Tsikata, senior research fellow of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana, and one of the book’s editors, presented key research results from the book.