By Kofi AHOVI
City and Guilds Skills Development (CSD), a non-profit organization, has launched a report dubbed ‘Training for Rural Development: Agriculture and Enterprise Skills for Women’ in response to growing concern on the lack of skills development for women smallholders.
The report highlights the need for agricultural and enterprise training for women smallholders to facilitate the reduction of poverty in developing countries.
Commenting on the report, spokesperson Justice Amoah said, “The report provides some excellent examples of good work by projects in rural Ghana, saying it is an excellent contribution to efforts being made to help women smallholders, and we are very pleased to have been involved in it.”
He added that CSD has explained the critical importance of understanding women’s needs, and how agriculture and enterprise training must be combined with access to technology.
The report provides project leaders throughout Ghana and other countries with practical and clear solutions to some of the big challenges that women smallholders are struggling with.
‘Training for Rural Development: Agriculture and Enterprise Skills for Women’ is the first report issued by the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD) that focuses on rural development.
It investigates the kinds of training that empower rural women to respond successfully to the key challenges they face, such as low literacy levels and multiple domestic obligations, and demonstrates the appropriate training that needs to be implemented.
Research shows that giving women farmers the same inputs and education as men could increase yields by 20%, but notes that despite this women continue to receive only a small proportion of the appropriate training compared to men.
By bringing together existing literature on the challenges women face and drawing out lessons from successful projects in India and Ghana, the report makes key recommendations for training that is tailored to suit women.
The recommendations propose a more focused approach to training, ensuring that projects effectively engage with women and their current challenges, use existing community structures, introduce new skills in manageable stages and work with local government structures to ensure long term change.
Also commenting on the CSD’s report, the Executive Director of Africa 2000 Network, Adisa Yakubu, said, “The Africa 2000 Network is hard at work in countries across Africa to help improve people’s lives, and women smallholders are a major target group for us. We have been happy to play a part in CSD’s vital research into how projects can help women smallholders to improve their lives, and those of their families and communities. The report, which contains excellent, practical suggestions for projects on how to approach the serious challenges faced by women in rural Africa, will, we are sure, play a significant role in helping projects to share knowledge and meet those challenges.”
Trainers from the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), for example, recently ran training sessions that found illiteracy and low education levels to be a major issue in terms of learning skills such as record keeping and managing finances.
One trainer said, “The women find it difficult to manage money, they forget what comes from where. By organising training to manage businesses as a group, the women become accountable to each other and overcome this barrier.”
By addressing the challenges that women smallholders face, training ultimately becomes more effective.
Kathleen Collett, one of the report’s authors, said, “With this report we want to encourage policy makers and development agencies to put more effort into focusing on women agricultural workers. We think more funding should go to that area and we also need to see projects using those funds to approach training and challenges more effectively.”
The City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development is a not-for-profit research and development body which is committed to improving the policy and practice of work related education and training internationally.
It aims to achieve its vision of a world in which all people have access to the skills they need for economic and individual prosperity.
To do this, it works worldwide with policy makers, employers, training providers and learners to share knowledge and help to lead the debate on policy and practice.
City and Guilds Skills Development (CSD), a non-profit organization, has launched a report dubbed ‘Training for Rural Development: Agriculture and Enterprise Skills for Women’ in response to growing concern on the lack of skills development for women smallholders.
The report highlights the need for agricultural and enterprise training for women smallholders to facilitate the reduction of poverty in developing countries.
Commenting on the report, spokesperson Justice Amoah said, “The report provides some excellent examples of good work by projects in rural Ghana, saying it is an excellent contribution to efforts being made to help women smallholders, and we are very pleased to have been involved in it.”
He added that CSD has explained the critical importance of understanding women’s needs, and how agriculture and enterprise training must be combined with access to technology.
The report provides project leaders throughout Ghana and other countries with practical and clear solutions to some of the big challenges that women smallholders are struggling with.
‘Training for Rural Development: Agriculture and Enterprise Skills for Women’ is the first report issued by the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD) that focuses on rural development.
It investigates the kinds of training that empower rural women to respond successfully to the key challenges they face, such as low literacy levels and multiple domestic obligations, and demonstrates the appropriate training that needs to be implemented.
Research shows that giving women farmers the same inputs and education as men could increase yields by 20%, but notes that despite this women continue to receive only a small proportion of the appropriate training compared to men.
By bringing together existing literature on the challenges women face and drawing out lessons from successful projects in India and Ghana, the report makes key recommendations for training that is tailored to suit women.
The recommendations propose a more focused approach to training, ensuring that projects effectively engage with women and their current challenges, use existing community structures, introduce new skills in manageable stages and work with local government structures to ensure long term change.
Also commenting on the CSD’s report, the Executive Director of Africa 2000 Network, Adisa Yakubu, said, “The Africa 2000 Network is hard at work in countries across Africa to help improve people’s lives, and women smallholders are a major target group for us. We have been happy to play a part in CSD’s vital research into how projects can help women smallholders to improve their lives, and those of their families and communities. The report, which contains excellent, practical suggestions for projects on how to approach the serious challenges faced by women in rural Africa, will, we are sure, play a significant role in helping projects to share knowledge and meet those challenges.”
Trainers from the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), for example, recently ran training sessions that found illiteracy and low education levels to be a major issue in terms of learning skills such as record keeping and managing finances.
One trainer said, “The women find it difficult to manage money, they forget what comes from where. By organising training to manage businesses as a group, the women become accountable to each other and overcome this barrier.”
By addressing the challenges that women smallholders face, training ultimately becomes more effective.
Kathleen Collett, one of the report’s authors, said, “With this report we want to encourage policy makers and development agencies to put more effort into focusing on women agricultural workers. We think more funding should go to that area and we also need to see projects using those funds to approach training and challenges more effectively.”
The City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development is a not-for-profit research and development body which is committed to improving the policy and practice of work related education and training internationally.
It aims to achieve its vision of a world in which all people have access to the skills they need for economic and individual prosperity.
To do this, it works worldwide with policy makers, employers, training providers and learners to share knowledge and help to lead the debate on policy and practice.
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