15 years recognizing their role in our society

The first International Day of Rural Women was observed on 15 October 2008. This new international day, established by the General Assembly in its resolution 62/136 of 18 December 2007, recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

For that reason, the resolution urges the Member States, in collaboration with the organizations of the United Nations and civil society to implement measures that could improve rural women's lives, including the ones in indigenous communities.

Governments and society need to pay attention to their needs and invest in them, pursuing the political and socio-economic empowerment of rural women and supporting their full and equal participation in decision-making at all levels, take them into account in their policies, developing specific assistance programs, and advisory services to promote economic skills of rural women in banking, modern trading and financial procedures and providing microcredit and other financial and business services, or designing laws to ensure that rural women are accorded full and equal rights to own land and other property, just to name a few.

All of these commitments are supervised, followed and supported by the UN through multiple agencies, like UN Women, FAO, ILO, World Bank, or IFAD, who try to fight from different perspectives (women's rights, investment, training...) for the goals and measures mark in the resolution.