ECOWAS |
ECOWAS countries
have been tasked to enforce gender-friendly and inclusive agriculture
laws to increase production and value-chain in order to meet up with
Africa's Zero Hunger target by the year 2025.
The reiteration
came at the ECOWAS Parliament joint programme with OXFAM and The
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) aimed at
promoting gender equality in agricultural land investments in Africa.
The 2 days
conference deliberated on issues of the inability of women to own land.
Participants revealed that women account for about 60 to 80 per cent of
smallholder farmers, and makeup the largest percentage of the workforce
in the agricultural sector. The event further addressed the inadequately
enforced policies that displace not only women but small-scale farmers
by multi-agricultural investors.
Speaking at the
programme, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) official, Tacko
Ndiaye, said data indicate less than 10 per cent of women in some West
African are landowners.
Ndiaye, who is the
Senior Officer for Gender, Equality and Rural Development at the FAO,
said ECOWAS must invest in women to increase their productive
potentials. She continued, "A 2013 survey by the Gambian Ministry of
Agriculture revealed that 90 percent of rice producers and rice field
managers are women. There is no choice but to invest in women."
Beyond gender-friendly policies, Ndiaye recommended the region's investment in agriculture be capacity driven.
OXFAM West African
Regional Director, Adama Coulibaly, emphasized the importance of
gender-equality and the protection of smallholder farmers in the region.
He notes that with Africa's vast arable land attracting investors,
rural farmers lose out to agricultural investors who buy up land in the
rural areas. "80 per cent of people in agriculture here in Africa are
smallholders. Our governments need to have well-balanced policies so
that when investors invest in large-scale agriculture the rights of
small-scale farmers should be promoted and protected. If not, we will
end up creating more vulnerabilities," Coulibaly warned.
Agriculture and
Investment Advisor at IISD, Carin Smaller, highlighted the need to
ensure gender-friendly agricultural programmes are carried out at the
time and place that maximizes the potentials for women's participation.
To tackle legal
obstacles to land rights in West Africa, Smaller said IISD in
collaboration with governments, national parliaments and the ECOWAS
Parliament work to change laws and policies towards the achievement of
the SDGs. "We are very active with parliamentarians to see what roles
they can play either at the legislative level by bringing new laws into
force; or at an oversight level, by making sure that laws being put into
place by the government are respected and enforced. Further, that their
constituencies know about what is happening, and can apply these new
laws and regulations," concluded Carin.
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