National Strategy on Women in Agriculture

The present strategy was prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) supported by FAO in 2015. It is a sectoral plan that aims to identify and implement priority activities that are vital for empowering women and to highlight the inextricable link between women’s empowerment, increased food security and poverty alleviation.
The overarching goal of the strategy is to promote inclusive agricultural development for women’s empowerment.
The strategic objectives will strengthen women’s role and visibility in the agricultural sector in the long-term in close alignment with the National Action Plan for Women in Afghanistan (NAPWA) and other polices of MAIL as well as other key sectoral policies of other social sector ministries: Women’s affairs, health, education and higher education, rural rehabilitation and development and commerce, trade and industries.
The strategy will be driven by the following four underlying issues: (i) women are not a homogenous whole but there are differences among women (age, ethnicity, location of activity, socio-economic category); (ii) implementation of a combination of strategically women-focused activities (where gender gap is so large that women have no access to available opportunities) & gender mainstreaming programmes; (iii) application of continuous learning and analysis based on field experiences for evidence-based advocacy and policy dialogue.
In order to eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, the following activities are planned by the policy: (i) increasing the productivity of women as farmers; (ii) improving women’s access to food; (iii) selecting adequate storage facilities for women farmers’ produce, using appropriate technology and mobilize women’s groups to contribute towards their development with shares; (iv) improving local preservation techniques for adding value with minimum chemical addition.
In order to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, the following activities are planned by the policy: (i) improve women’s direct access to land, production credit, agricultural inputs, technology, technical information on new agricultural practices; (ii) provide training directly to women farmers in new farm practices, rather than training their husbands on the assumption that the latter will convey the skills to their spouses; (iii) direct more agricultural research and development to crops that women cultivate and promoting a better understanding of women’s farming systems through the appointment of female agricultural agents.
In order to enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food system, the plan proposes to: (i) provide rural women with greater mobility and market information by facilitating adequate transportation and access to market information; (ii) achieve greater market access and market development for women in the agricultural sector by identifying the local bottlenecks and markets and addressing them; (iii) improve women’s participation in local markets and where possible establish women’s at different levels: district, province and national through targeted and location specific intervention.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the strategy plans to undertake gender analysis to clarify the specific and different needs, vulnerabilities, and coping strategies (safety nets) of women and men to better respond to the impacts of disasters through, among others, the following activities: (i) promote disaster-specific agricultural technologies and ensure women understand and apply them when threatened with food insecurity; (ii) recognize the expertise and local knowledge of women disaster survivors and empower them in the management of social and environmental hazards and prevention of disasters; (iii) increase women’s access to risk management information through women-sensitive early warning systems and target specific social groups for warning information to address their needs and circumstances; (iv) collaborate for the creation of networks that promote community access to gender-sensitive information and communication technologies that support information exchange on environmental management and disaster risk reduction; (v) ensure women household heads receive benefits during disasters.
In the context of governance, the strategy will be implemented by MAIL in close collaboration with the major stakeholders and in partnership with provincial authorities to ensure effective translation into practice of major recommendations. The selection of operational areas (countries, districts, towns, etc.) and others services providers (CSOs/NGOs) as well as the women and women’s associations will be done in consultation with the implementing partners through a participatory approach.