The regional consultation brought together experts from selected Asian countries where the economy is highly dependent on agriculture for the following purposes:
To examine gender responsive strategies and women inclusive approaches in key policies, legislation and programmes in specific sectors relevant to food security and poverty alleviation. The identified sectors are agriculture and natural resource management; rural development and poverty alleviation and livelihood development.
To examine post-Beijing national plans for action for women that address rural women’s access to resources and emerging opportunities.
To identify achievements and gaps in current women-centred and gender responsive policies, programmes and legislative measures that support rural women’s advancement to achieve sustainable livelihoods and stable household food security.
To identify constraints to the implementation and barriers impacting women-centred achievements of national policies, legislation and programmes intended to favour advancement of rural women.
To explore the status of research-based information available on rural women for formulation of policy, programmes and legislations in the specified sectors.
To formulate recommendations that address resource access and capacity building priorities in policies, programmes and legislation that impact women-centred actions relevant to rural women’s advancement through inter-agency collaboration.
The consultation’s outcomes were the following:
Recommendations to strengthen gender responsive agenda in national policies, programme strategies and legislative measures for rural women’s advancement in the post Beijing Plus 10 Phase development decade.
Recommendations to improve national policies, programme strategies and legislative measures that impact women-inclusive agriculture and rural development and to cultivate inter-agency collaboration for this impact.
Recommendations for regional collective action to strengthen the focus on rural women in the Beijing Plus 10 review and the follow-up agenda through regional bodies such as ESCAP, ASEAN, APEC and SAARC.
Publication of a consultation report as a major contribution of FAO to contribute to the deliberations on Beijing Plus 10 planned for the Year 2005.
