women empowerment

Women farmers play a central role in small-scale agriculture. But they are held back by barriers that prevent them from feeding their families and reinvesting in their livelihoods. A real support would protect their rights, boost their productivity and unleash their potential to fight hunger, poverty and climate change.

Rwandan women head close to a third of agricultural households and provide almost two thirds of the labour on family farms. Despite this, they have very little control over the sale of cash crops. With the support of Oxfam, the women members of the Tuzamurane cooperative grow and sell pineapples together and are no longer trapped in a low income cycle.

Despite some important progress in recent years, in no country have women achieved economic equality with men, and women are still more likely than men to live in poverty. Gender inequality in work costs women in developing countries $9 trillion a year – a sum which would provide a massive boost to the global economy.

Women’s economic empowerment could reduce poverty for everyone. In order to achieve it, we need to first fix the current broken economic model which is undermining gender equality and causing extreme economic inequality.

At the close of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings in Washington, Chris Stalker, Acting Head of Oxfam International’s Washington office, commented on the week's developments.