Rural Women Conference: ‘Alleviate growing gender inequalities and poverty’

ISLAMABAD: As we are facing the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, policy interventions that address the specific needs of women farmers are the need of the time to mitigate the current adverse effects on economy, expedite the recovery process in rural areas, and to alleviate growing gender inequalities and poverty.

The consensus was reached at a session organised during the second day of the three-day annual conference on International Rural Women Day on Friday. This is 13th annual conference organised by PODA-Pakistan in connection with International Rural Women Day that is celebrated on October 15.

The theme of the conference is ‘Rural Women's Leadership in Climate Change Adaptation, COVID-19 Response, Governance and Disaster Preparedness.’ The conference will be concluded on Saturday on award distribution ceremony in Lok Virsa. They identified water scarcity a major problem that needed to be solved and tackled by the government on urgent basis.

A very significant session was organised on Friday to celebrate International Food Day on theme of “Women Farmers and Climate Change Adaptation in Pakistan." The women farmers of the session validated through their testimonial addresses that the climate change has affected their lives adversely. The rural women representative from four provinces alongwith Azad Kashmir and Gilgt-Baltistan identified factors due to which hostile and adverse changes occurred in their lives due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The speakers were of the view that the pandemic response needed to be focused to address the growing inequalities faced by the rural women of Pakistan while considering the negative impacts unreasonably borne by them.

Minà Dowlatchahi, FAO Representative in Pakistan was the guest of honor during the session on “Women Farmers and Climate Change Adaptation in Pakistan.” World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supported PODA-Pakistan to hold this session on the subject to share their accomplishments where both and men are collaborating with FAO in Sindh and Balochistan. FAO Representative was of the view that platforms like this conference are important to unlock the potential of women who need to have equal participation in every sphere of life. Addressing the gathering she said that to expedite the struggle for your rights you need to keep working and raise collective voice to move your plan of action.

President of PODA-Pakistan, Sameena Nazir said Rural “rural women are the center of agriculture and in most cases are solely responsible for food security of their families and nutrition of their families and children specially. They need to be incorporated well in the government policies, she added.