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“ Higher Population Council” Emphasizes Jordan’s Commitment to Enhancing the Development of Rural Women
“ Higher Population Council” Emphasizes Jordan’s Commitment to Enhancing the Development of Rural Women
Tuesday, 15 October 2019

On Tuesday, Jordan and the world celebrate the International Day of Rural Women, which is celebrated every year on October 15th. This annual celebration aims at appreciating rural women for their important role in enhancing the agricultural and rural development, improving food security level, and ending rural poverty. Furthermore, the celebration sheds light on the role of rural women and girls in building resilience and viability to face climate change.

In a special press release on this occasion, the Higher Population Council stated that Jordan affirmed its commitment to promoting the development of rural woman through its commitment to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development 1994, the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and other relevant international instruments and resolutions. Regarding enhancing the economic empowerment of rural women, HPC showed that there are considerable efforts made by the Agriculture Credit Corporation which supports the funding of rural projects to make a paradigm shift in the comprehensive concept of rural development in rural and desert areas, in addition to supporting the improvement and productivity of projects and the various financing funds that offer lending ways to fund women’s micro-projects in the rural areas.

The HPC further stressed that integrating gender equality considerations within the sustainable development frameworks, and adopting gender-sensitive policies and programs for agricultural and rural development is an important requirement for improving the livelihood and prosperity of rural women. This aims at achieving progress in implementing the sustainable development plan of 2030 as well as ensuring that no woman or girl in a rural area is left behind in the implementation, monitoring and taking advantage of the results achieved. 

The national statistics of 2018 indicated that Jordan has 9.7% of population in rural areas and 90.3% in urban areas, as the population estimated number in urban areas is about (995,400) people, and the number of females is estimated at (470,824) people. Moreover, the average size of the rural family is 5.1 persons compared to 4.7 persons for the urban family.

Regarding the economic empowerment indicators of Jordanian women (+15 years) who live in rural areas in 2018, their revised economic activity average was 16.9% and the rate of working women was 11.2%, while unemployment rates increase to reach 31.1%.  

Regarding the educational level, the statistics of the Department of Statistics of 2018 show that the illiteracy rate among Jordanian females aged +15 years who live in the rural areas was 13% compared to 6.6% of those in urban areas.

Regarding asset ownership, the Population and Family Health Survey results of 2017/2018 show that the rate of women who have been married when they were between the ages of (15-49 years), live in rural areas, and don’t own land was 89.8%, and the rate of women who don’t own a house was 86.7%. Regarding controlling the cash return for women, the results of the survey showed that 12.3% of women living in rural areas decide how to use the cash return, compared to 14.9% of urban women. Furthermore, the results showed that about 44.3% of women have less cash returns less than that of their husbands.

As for the health indicators of rural women, the results further indicated that the rate of women who have been married between the ages of 15-49 years, live in rural areas, and have any type of health insurance was 79.3%. Also, the total rate of reproduction of women who live in rural areas was 3.1 child for every woman compared to 2.7 child for every woman in urban areas. Moreover, the rate of women who live in the countryside and receive health care during their pregnancy from a competent service provider was 98%. As for teenage pregnancy, the rate of married women who live in the countryside, aged between 15-19 years, and who started to have children was 3.6%.

At the international level, many international references emphasized the importance of supporting rural woman. The Sustainable Development Plan of 2030 forms a comprehensive and transformative framework covering rural development and rural women and girl’s empowerment through the importance of devoting resources to develop rural areas and sustain agriculture and fishers, and supporting female farmers and those who are engaged with grazing and fishing in developing countries, especially in the least developed countries. The most important and relevant goals of sustainable development are: The first goal related to ending poverty, the fifth goal related to achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and goal no.15 related to taking urgent procedures to address climate change and its impacts. Addressing climate change can be achieved by developing the women’s ability to effectively plan and manage; furthermore, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action included environmental challenges and climate change issues as two central components in the critical areas that appear in the platform for action. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women includes several invitations for States parties to take all appropriate measures to end discrimination against rural woman.

The report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations General Assembly for 2019 on improving the situation of women and girls in rural areas pointed out that more than 3 billion people and 80% of the extremely poor live in rural areas. Furthermore, about 2.5 billion of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and nearly a third of the women worldwide work in agriculture, including forestry and fishing, and are concentrated in low-wage informal sector activities, which require considerable time and effort and provide little social protection and income security for them.

Women and girls in rural areas further suffer from multidimensional poverty, and the lack of equal access to resources, productive assets and public services such as education, health care, clean water and sanitation, along with the poverty and exclusion they live, and they are affected by the consequences of climate change that increases due to gender inequality in rural areas.