What do rural women in Colombia really need?
Mariana Tafur, CCAFS Gender Policy Consultant(CCAFS Latin America)
New brief summarises the progress of the inclusion of rural women’s needs in agricultural public policy and climate change in Colombia.
The new brief explains the situation of rural women in the context of Colombia’s internal armed conflict. Correspondingly, it reports on Colombia’s agricultural sector and on rural women’s role as agricultural producers, access to productive resources, and mechanisms of political participation.
The analysis takes into account various factors surrounding a war of over sixty years and the effects it has brought to rural areas in environmental and agricultural terms.
The brief also contains the following highlights: gender gaps in labor and poverty, land rights formalisation as a means of empowerment, successful cases of policymaking influenced by rural women, and the state of gender inclusion in climate change policies.
The analysis emphasises that agricultural and climate change policies need to consider the local effects of the armed conflict. This will enable policies to be truly committed to the promotion of the needs and interests of rural men and women. Similarly, policy makers must take into account the new situation of Colombia’s rural areas and integrate a gender perspective in all development initiatives. This is particularly critical for successful adaptation strategies and mitigation actions.
Finally, the Brief presents recommendations for integrating the needs and interests of rural women in the formulation of agricultural sector public policies focused on adaptation and mitigation. Women still lack knowledge of their rights in some cases, and there exist limited access to education and training for women, insufficient means of participation in decision-making processes, and critical barriers to productive resources.
Click here to download the brief (in Spanish)
The gender and equity team of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), has been preparing briefs that reflect the importance of giving a gender approach to agricultural policy and climate change in Latin America, considering interests and needs of rural women and men. An example is the Brief focused on supporting the Peruvian government, which under the COP 20, established a commitment to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to develop its Action Plan on Climate Change and Gender.
Mariana Tafur Rueda is a political scientist with graduate studies in rural development. She is currently a consultant of CCAFS gender and climate change policies and is based in Bogotá, Colombia.
