Gender strategy for agriculture & rural development

I. Overall strategic objectives:

1. Development objective of the agriculture and rural development (ARD) sector by 2020

To generate higher incomes and reduce poverty for both men and women by introducing policies and programs for agriculture and rural development.

2. Development objectives set in the Strategy on Gender by 2010

• To improve gender equality and enhance position of women within the ARD sector.
• To institutionalize the inclusion of gender issue in the designing, planning and introduction of ARD programs.

II. Specific objectives and solutions

Objective 1: To enhance social awareness about gender, amidst socialism-orientated agricultural and rural industrialization and modernization.

Solutions:

Spreading propaganda in a bid to improve awareness and knowledge on gender issues as a key factor in the country’s socio-economic development, targeting on residents of different levels from the community’s level in rural areas to the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Objective 2: To improve women’s access and involvement into the management of major resources, including land, water, infrastructure, credit lines, and other public services in the ARD sector.

Solutions:

On land: Names of both wife and husband must be stated in certificates of land use rights in line with the objectives set in the National Strategy on Growth, Starvation Elimination and Poverty Reduction. It should launch campaigns of propaganda and training courses for cadres at the province, district and commune’s levels in order to ensure the strict compliance with legal provisions.

On credit lines: The banks should simplify procedures and loan terms and accept various purposes of loan usage. Policies, procedures and operating process should take to gender into account, so as to ensure that women and men shall be able to access equally to banking loans from the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (VBARD) and other state-owned commercial banks. Banking staffs and representatives must get training in gender to aware of sex roles and specific features of culture and family. In addition, there should be a close coordination between banking staffs and agriculture and forestry extension staffs in training loan borrowing households in farming techniques, market information, and skills to make production and business plans. Detailed information on credit facilities should be made available to households, especially women. Also, data on banking loans and the usage of loans should be classified by sex of credit borrowers.

On water resource: Gender analysis should be done as part of the preparation of projects for clean water and rural environment hygiene, so as to ensure that women and men shall be beneficiaries of the projects and be able to take part in activities, such as fee determination, rehabilitation, maintenance, communication campaigns, and training courses.

It is also required to ensure that women and men shall be able to take part in the conservation of irrigation water sources, taking account of roles and demands of each gender in designing and maintaining irrigation systems. Irrigation works management boards and water usage associations should have female and male members.

Objective 3: To include targets on gender, sex-disaggregated monitoring and evaluation tools in development policies, plans, programs, and projects of MARD and the ARD sector.

Solutions:

There should be a commitment by MARD’s leaders. The capacity for gender integration within the ministry in relation to human resource, financial resource, operating statute, and administrative procedures must be strengthened. Those activities shall begin with the improvement of gender awareness and knowledge of the ministry’s leaders.

Managers and specialists, especially those who are responsible for drawing up policies, schemes, budget plans and arranging the provision of public services within the ARD sector should be equipped with knowledge and skills and assigned to make reports in order to ensure that the gender sensitivity and the needs of men and women shall be taken into consideration fairly. Also, gender indicators and sex-disaggregated data must be incorporated into the reporting system.

In addition to the targeted communication strategy within the ARD system, a gender-inclusive professional training program will be designed and gradually carried out in combination of projects held at management schools, the National Administrative Academy, and the Hochiminh National Political Academy. The training program shall include initial training and annual advanced training courses. Certificates of gender training should be recorded in personnel resume and annual reports including sex-disaggregated data for submission to the personnel organization departments. 

The neds of women and men must be taken into account in the selection, survey, designing, appraisal and implementation of rural development projects and programs at the central and local levels. Impact assessments of new rural infrastructure development projects, including water supply, irrigation, roads, medical points, communication, schools and markets etc. should be conducted as part of the designing process. The impact surveys in rural areas must involve farmers.

Objective 4: To achieve gender-sensitive practices and gender equality in research studies, public services and training delivery.

Solutions:

Researches on new technologies and business development opportunities should be targeted on the fields, in which both male and female workers are expected to be the main beneficiaries. Studies providing analysis of risks and social security network should take the needs of women and men as well as the gender roles in the family and community into account.

Developing public services in agriculture and rural development, agricultural and forestry extension services in particular, so as to apply latest technologies into cultivation, animal husbandry, forest conservation and development in a sustainable way. In order to ensure that agriculture and forestry extension programs shall be designed to meet the needs of women and men within the MARD’s system, agriculture and forestry extension staffs should facilitate women in getting involved in the above-mentioned activities. Considerations including location and duration of the events should be taken into account in the design and launch of agriculture and forestry extension services. Meanwhile, sex-disaggregated data on need, utility and participation should be regularly collected, analyzed and used as a management tool to monitor the performance.

Together with agricultural and forestry extension services, it should sharpen focus on vocational raining courses targeting on women, so as to raise their professional knowledge and enhance their self-confidence. At the community’s level, it should set up core groups that are made up of excellent female and male farmers having good knowledge on advanced technologies and close ties with the People’s Councils, the People’s Committees, Farmers’ Unions, and Women's Unions.

Long-terms solutions are to increase propaganda and encourage female enrolment in the MARD-administered universities, colleges and vocational schools. Meanwhile, it should to provide the proportion of females and males in recruiting staffs within the ARD sector. Rates of female and male candidates must be clearly prescribed in the enrolment in professional advanced training courses at the MARD's management schools.

Gender issue in ARD must be considered a compulsory subject in teaching programs at all the education and training institutions within the ARD sector. Also, it must be incorporated into other subjects relating to social and economic development.

Objective 5 : To increase women's empowerment and access to decision-making at key institutions in the sector including MARD, DARDs, People’s Committees of all levels, agricultural universities, institutes, colleges, vocational schools and enterprises

Solutions:

Gender equality should be seen as a key tenet of the MARD's administrative reform, especially in the fields of human resource management and development. All the aspects of human resource management, including job descriptions, policies on staff recruitment, assignment, planning, training and promotion should reflect a commitment to gender equality. The performance of gender equality targets set in the Action Plan for Gender Equality should be included in the periodic work reviews. Human resource development activities, including training delivery, study tours at home and abroad, advanced training, participation in national and international conferences, workshops, and projects etc., shall be held on principle of gender equality for the purpose of promoting the advancement of women and narrowing down a gender gap among leaders and highly qualified officials.

There is a need to establish sub-committees for women’s advancement at local level and gender specialists in order to give a fresh impetus to the development of gender equality and track down the implementation of gender equality as a basic indicator among socio-economic development indicators within the ARD sector. Capacity building is required as part of strengthening the MARD’s Committee for Women’s Advancement (CWA) so that its subordinate agencies shall have gender specialists. To gradually integrate gender within MARD, the CWA should be fortified to gain sufficient capacity and qualifications for operation. The CWA’s functions and powers shall be prescribed in detail and the Action Plan shall guaranteed by human and financial resources. The CWA should make use of the support and guidance of the MARD’s leaders.

Women and men must have equal opportunities to access to education and training. In rural communities, gender factor should be taken into account in the enrollment in primary, secondary and post secondary schools. Cities and provinces should introduce policies on advanced training for women in a bid to advance them as community’s leaders.

Raising women’s capacity within the ARD sector, especially rural women’s capacity to get them involved in all the economic activities, holds the key to achieving gender equality in community management and decision-making. It should establish local boards monitoring and reviewing the compliance with laws and policies on agriculture and rural development with the participation of all the relevant sectors and organizations, such as the ARD sector, justice, labor, war invalids and social affairs, Vietnam Women's Union and the CWA. Dissemination of social information, consultation and contribution of ideas by both women and men are required in the formulation of socio-economic plans and programs in line with the requirements of contents and participants of target groups at local level. Also, dissemination and consultations on the rights of women and children and gender equality in communities should be developed.

Moreover, the MARD’s human resource information systems should provide reports on human resource management and development using sex-disaggregated data.

Action Plan until 2005

Focusing on five main objectives as follows:

· To reach the rights of equality for women in the fields of labor and employment.

· To attain the equality for women in the fields of training and profession development.

· To gain the rights of equality for women in the field of healthcare.

·  To raise the female involvement in management and leadership.

·  To enhance capacity of the MARD’s CWA and related sub-committees.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

The Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development