حوار مستقل
نطاق التركيز الجغرافي:
أفغانستان, ألبانيا, بلجيكا, بوتسوانا, البرازيل, بوركينا فاسو, كمبوديا, الكاميرون, فرنسا, ألمانيا, الهند, إيطاليا, Kiribati, مالي, المكسيك, النيجر, نيجيريا, لا حدود جغرافية, السنغال, جنوب أفريقيا, المملكة المتحدة لبريطانيا العظمى وآيرلندا الشمالية, الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية
Area of divergence
One of the dialogue that has an evident an data was the one presented by Mr. John Ugwu a retired banker and Financial Analyst and also a Co-convener in my dialogue. Hs words: When the Nigerian government provided seeds, water pumps, fertilizer and loans to farmers as a part of a national agriculture program, only few women, especially in the rural grassroot, were among the many beneficiaries. But women generally have capacity to manage and increase farm produce to reduce food shortage and take care of homes and families. The following two short stories will buttress this fact. Mama Segun, a wi
... قراءة المزيدdow, took over her husband’s cocoa farm in Ikare near Akure, Ondo State, after the death of her husband. Every year, she engages laborers to work on the farm and reap good harvest and money to take care of Segun and his siblings. Today, Segun is a graduate, with all his siblings, following the death of her husband, Ajuma Ajonye was farming her husband’s land in the Ugbugbu Akor, Orokam community in Benue State of Nigeria, where women do not usually inherit property or participate in decision making. She did not have access to weather information, but followed the advice of extension workers to practice crop rotation and secured critical resources from the agricultural program. Ajuma repaid her loan ahead of all the other farmers and doubled the amount of land she cultivated. As a result of the government’s services, Ajuma’s family’s nutrition improved significantly. In exchange for labor, she provided food to other women farmers who were not able to access land and government support. These stories demonstrate how support directed to women farmers can lead to positive ripple effects across households, communities and countries. Farmers like Mama Segun and Ajuma play a central role in reversing poverty and food insecurity, and building resilience in the face of climate change. Women smallholder producers are heavily engaged in domestic activities, which remain hidden economically. These dual roles in households and on farms mean that their empowerment can have a wider impact on communities and economies. Agriculture is more likely than any other sector to provide diverse opportunities for empowering women and reducing food shortage and climate vulnerability. However, women do not receive the same support as men farmers, who have more access to farming inputs such as land, fertilizer and technology; financial services such as loans and subsidiaries; and technical support such as weather information and training through extension services. These barriers result in women producing 20-30 percent less than men. Supporting women farmers is not simply about securing identical inputs for women and men, but ensuring that resources are line with women’s needs. Social norms and institutional constraints are significant barriers to many resources being effective for women. CHALLENGES/ DIFFICULTIES WOMEN SMALL GRASSROOT FARMERS FACE IN ACCESSING FINANCE/ INPUTS: Achieving the agriculture transformational change that Nigeria and of course Africa craves is one that can sustain the continent’s urgent food demands and the changing agricultural landscape will require clear understanding of the gender-gap blocking issues in the sector. Below is an account of the most pressing issues: a. Access to Productive Resources: It is widely known that grassroot smallholders women farmers tend to experience more constraints in accessing agricultural productive resources such as: - I. Access to Land: in most parts of Nigeria and Africa, women do not have inheritance rights to land. Unequal rights to land borne out of diverse statutes, religious, customary and local norms put women at a disadvantage poverty, and entrench gender inequality in Africa. Women represent less than 15% of agricultural landholders, livestock or other agricultural resources (that is, those who exercise management control over an agricultural holding as owners or tenants, or through customary rights). II. Access to Finance and Financial Services: Agricultural finance is among the most difficult type of finance to secure. Smallholders grassroot women farmers experience greater constraints than their male counter parts based on the following: • Perceived risk – That Agricultural loans to women are difficult to recover. Second, that there is usually no collateral security to fall back to, in case of default. And even if there are, the Forced Sales Value of such security will be worthless. Grassroot Smallholder women farmers operate in an environment particularly perceived as riskier than that found in other non African developing countries. Lack of Management capacities- African grassroot smallholder women farmers lacks the necessary Managerial capacity as rural dwellers with limited education to manage farms. Africa’s large population of rural dwellers with limited education has little or no access to financial services and is effectively unbanked. This segment of the population has had neither the opportunity for interaction with final institutions nor exposure necessary to develop skills for accessing formal credit. • Access to Banking Services. Location of Farm - Another adventitious explanation for prohibitive access to finance is the physical location of farms and distance from credit source. The distance between the borrower and the leader has an impact on the resulting borrower-bank relationship. Banks are reluctant to give loans to the grassroot smallholder farmers. The way forward and divergent views hold will be seen in later outcomes below. قراءة القليل
مسار (مسارات) العمل: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
الكلمات الأساسية: Data & Evidence, Environment and Climate, Finance, Governance, Human rights, Innovation, Policy, Trade-offs, Women & Youth Empowerment
