Empowering Rural Women Improves Livelihoods, Makes World a Better Place

The benefits are many — from greater social development to changes that improve the world — when nations empower ambitious women. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once said you will change a family if you empower a woman, but you will change the world if you empower a group of women. Women, especially rural women, make up a great source of power for development. As key contributors to global economies, rural women play a critical role in both developed and developing nations. How? They enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and help reduce poverty in their communities. Empowering rural women not only gives them greater dignity and welfare, it also helps improve others' livelihoods — and helps change the world.

About Empowerment

Women's empowerment has been an important achievement in the global women's movement. If women want to benefit from social development and obtain an equal footing with men in employment, education and other areas of development, they must be empowered. They should take control of their lives.

Since the 1990s, the United Nations (UN), and various other international institutions, have stressed that empowering women is an important way of achieving both women's development and gender equality. In 1994, participants at the UN conference on population and development, in Cairo, adopted a 20-year plan of action, known as the Cairo Consensus, which called on countries to recognize that women's needs, rather than demographers' plans, should be at the heart of population strategies.

The Cairo Consensus dedicated one chapter to gender equality and women's empowerment. That document stressed that empowering women, giving them self-autonomy and improving their political, social, economic and health status were important objectives that were also crucial to sustainable development.

In 2012, the UN celebrated International Women's Day by organizing the activity "Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty." At that time, Ban and Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, President of the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly, appealed to the international community to eliminate gender equality and empower rural women.

Ban said more women had become national leaders and that the percentage of high-level female government officials had reached a high level. He added that women were playing a more significant role in their nations' economies and that more girls were receiving an education, growing up healthily and being educated about their own potential.

Despite such improvements, Ban said, women were still far from fully enjoying their lawful rights and interests. The gap, he added, was especially large in rural areas. Ban said discriminatory laws restrain rural women's impact on their communities and countries.

"Estimates reveal that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent, to lift 100-150 million out of hunger … To empower rural women is the smartest thing a developing country can do," Ban said.

Rural women's development lags in many countries, including China. Some international women's organizations want the solving of rural women's problems included in the global development framework.

In recent years, the Chinese Government and various non-governmental organizations in China have been dedicated to helping the country achieve gender equality and women's empowerment. 

Speech by Cui Yu, Member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation, During a Discussion on How Women Effect Rural Development 
Agriculture plays a fundamental role in protecting economic and social development, improving people's lives and maintaining social stability. In China, rural women are the main force in food safety and agricultural production and development. It is crucial, therefore, that society empower rural women, improve their status and encourage them to play their roles in social and political development. 

We are glad to see that the global community has attached great importance to the protection of rural women's rights and development, and that the global community has made an effort to promote rural women's development. 

China is an agriculture-based country, and a country that consumes a large amount of agricultural products. Chinese women have played an important role in promoting the development of agriculture and the countryside. The Chinese Government has attached great importance to rural women's development. The Chinese Government has taken legal, administrative and economic measures to protect rural women's equal rights and interests. 

First, rural women make up the main workforce in agricultural production. Coinciding with China's industrialization and urbanization, a great number of rural men have relocated to cities to find work. Thus, women now make up 65 percent of the rural workforce. Rural women produce half of the food on Chinese people's dinner tables. Women have contributed a great deal to the promotion of China's rural and agricultural development. 

Women's organizations, at all levels, have organized training to teach 20 million rural women new skills and techniques and how to read and write. 

In 2009, women's organizations implemented a small-loan program to encourage rural women to participate in rural development. The policy has proven to be effective; it has benefited rural women in 2,427 counties, from 300 cities, nationwide. 

Under the program, more than 67 billion yuan (US $10.63 billion) in small loans have been issued, and those loans have motivated 6 million rural women to start their own businesses. Thanks to the program, rural women have achieved greater autonomy and seized their right to make decisions in agricultural production. 

For many of the rural women, the small loan was the first time they had received a bank loan. The small-loan program helped rural women develop their economic potential. 

Second, rural women have become participants in rural democratic politics. China has 604,000 villages. The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) has taken measures to promote rural women's participation in village committees and rural branches of the CPC (Communist Party of China). In the past five years, 83.6 percent of the rural women have participated in village committee elections. Rural women are moving closer to equality with men and they have a greater say in the decision-making process. 

Third, rural women help promote the development of socialism. Women play an irreplaceable role in improving cultural development and family virtues. The ACWF has taken measures to care for left-behind women and left-behind children in the countryside. Women's federations, at all levels, have organized 221,200 aid groups for left-behind women, so they can help each other in both work and life. An increasing number of rural women are voluntarily participating in public-welfare work, such as poverty alleviation, ecological protection and voluntary services. They have made great contributions to the prosperity of the countryside. 

Fourth, rural women benefit from the development of rural healthcare. Health is the basis for people's overall development. In rural China, the incidence rates of cervical cancer and breast cancer are on the rise. 

Since 2009, the ACWF and China's Ministry of Health (MOH) have promoted, among rural women, free screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer. Some 13.15 million rural women have received free cancer screening. The ACWF and MOH also established a special fund to provide financial assistance to poor rural women who suffer from cervical cancer and/or breast cancer. Under the fund, a poor rural woman can receive up to 10,000 yuan (US $1,587.30) for treatment. Implementation of the free cancer-screening project has improved rural women's health awareness and encouraged women to pay more attention to their health. 

When it comes to the construction of a material civilization, reality has proven that rural women can hold up half of the sky. Women also play an irreplaceable role in promoting ethics, socialism family harmony and social stability. 

On the one hand, we can see that more countries are paying attention to rural women's development and making an effort to promote gender equality and rural women's empowerment. On the other hand, we are still far from realizing true gender equality for rural women. 

Various factors, such as poverty, prejudice, lack of resources and the low rate of representation in the decision-making process, still affect rural women's progress. 

In 2012, the UN celebrated International Women's Day by organizing the activity "Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty." (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser) appealed to the international community to eliminate gender discrimination and empower rural women. 

Ban has said if you empower a woman, you will change a family; if you empower a group of women, you will change the world. We are willing to join hands with all nations to put our promise into action by playing an active role in promoting rural women's development in a changing world.