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News archives 1997
January-April: SEAGA in West Africa | International Women's Day | Agrarian law, Latin America | AIDS Day | SEAGA pre-testing
SEAGA introduced to trainers in French-speaking West Africa
The French version of the FAO-sponsored Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis Programme (SEAGA) has been introduced to trainers from Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal (for SEAGA details, see Resources: Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis Programme: summary description - also in French). The occasion was a gender training course organized by The Netherlands' Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) for several West African countries in Burkina Faso in February 1997.Reaction to SEAGA was very positive - participants appreciated its holistic approach, the linking of macro- and intermediate/field levels, and its core principles and definitions, which allowed for deeper understanding of gender issues. Participants also welcomed its concrete didactic materials. As follow-up, the trainers will create a network to provide more in-depth comments on the SEAGA materials.
FAO also presented SEAGA to two other Burkina Faso audiences: the Women Section of the Ministry of Agriculture's Extension Division, and the Association of Women Researchers and Scientists of the National Centre of Scientific Research. The Ministry's Extension Division will seek funds to organize a SEAGA training session for their trainers.
International Women's Day at FAO
Mainstreaming rural women as "agents of food security" was the theme of International Women's Day celebrated at FAO headquarters in Rome on 12 March 1997. The event was meant as a formal ceremony to honour rural women, and a contribution to gender concepts that give women and men equal access to development.FAO's Director-General, Mr Jacques Diouf introduced the illustrated publication of the FAO Plan of Action for Women in Development, explaining that the Plan requires socioeconomic and gender analysis to be considered in all FAO policies and projects. This includes the Organization's Special Programme for Food Security in Low-Income and Food-Deficit Countries, and the 1996 World Food Summit Plan of Action.
The Director-General recalled his policy on female professional employment in FAO: since taking office three years ago, the number of female Division Directors had increased from three to 11; moreover, he had given instructions for the promotion and recruitment of women professional staff within FAO.
Other highlights included an exhibition of photographs and statistics on women's participation in development, a video show presenting portraits of rural women, and an open seminar on definitions of gender, female professional employment at FAO, rural women and education in nutrition, and extension for women in agriculture.
Agrarian law in Latin America
Legal and rural development specialists from eight Latin America and Caribbean countries attended a recent FAO regional meeting on agrarian law. The meeting - held in Lima, Peru - examined existing agrarian laws, reviewed strategies for making rural women's rights known and prepared proposals to change regulations that exclude women from their legal rights.The participants (from Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) submitted papers on laws that continue to affect rural women. They found that while laws in the participating countries do not specifically establish sex discrimination, a series of historical, social, cultural and political factors continue to limit their access to land, credit, technical assistance and other resources.
The meeting recommended that FAO and Latin American governments cooperate in revising rural development laws to include specific regulations in favour of rural women. Further information: Vilma Aray, Regional Officer (Women in Development), FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Calle Bandera, 150 (Pisos 6-10), Casilla 10095, Santiago, Chile (e-mail: FAO-RLC@field.fao.org).
World AIDS Day at FAO
To mark World AIDS Day (1 December 1996), FAO's Women and Population Division held a symposium at its Rome headquarters on medical aspects of the AIDS pandemic. Guest speakers from UNAIDS, Geneva, and Italian health services described recent epidemiological developments, progress in diagnostics and treatment, and gender and youth issues.This theme of this year's AIDS Day - "One world, one hope" - was that of the 11th International Conference on AIDS, held in Vancouver, Canada, in July. It reflects the fact that HIV and AIDS are global problems and the need for cooperation in preventing the spread of HIV and building a global society that offers care and support to the estimated 22 million people whose lives have been affected by the epidemic.
For details of FAO activities on AIDS, see Resources/Projects: Effect of HIV/AIDS on agricultural production systems in West Africa, Resources/Reports: AIDS and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and Extension and Education News Archives: AIDS awareness.
Socio-economic and gender analysis pre-testing begins
FAO's Women and Population Division is pre-testing in Costa Rica, Egypt and Cote D'Ivoire concepts and materials developed under its Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis Programme (SEAGA). The programme, a joint activity of FAO, ILO and UNDP, aims at building capacities to use socioeconomic and gender analysis for improved development policy and practice, resulting in development that is responsive to local people's needs and situations.The main output of SEAGA will be a training package and tools for the identification and analysis of gender-disaggregated socioeconomic information for all phases of policy, programme and project cycles. The SEAGA Package has several components, including a User's Framework and Reference, handbooks for application of SEAGA at different levels of society, an electronic hypertext version with core elements of other documents, learning materials and case studies, and guides covering specific technical areas. CD-ROM and Internet versions of these documents will be made available.
A technical meeting on SEAGA, held at FAO, reviewed materials and documents drafted to date and proposed revisions to harmonize different components of the SEAGA Package. Work has begun on adapting the SEAGA concepts, and translating the main documents for French- and Spanish-speaking countries. Based the lessons learned from the pre-testing exercises, the SEAGA team will further revise and adapt the package. Full-scale pilot tests from are expected to begin in March 1997.
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