The farming sector faces a pervasive gender imbalance, leading to women-related water poverty, that will only take away from achieving Jamaica’s national development plan, Vision 2030; and away from its sustainable development pathway.
The UNESCO Office for the Caribbean has sought to map the gender disparity within the farming ecosystem and its implication on sustainable water management through the implementation of the Joint Sustainable Development Fund Project “Strengthening Jamaica’s Resilience to food and water insecurity”.
The UNESCO Office for the Caribbean organized a women engagement workshop on March 8 to 10 th, 2023 entitled “Water Management Strategies and Solutions for rural women farmers”. The workshop gathered three sets of rural women farmers from the main agricultural areas where the UNESCO surveys were done in Clarendon, Manchester, St. Elizabeth, and St. Ann. The focus group discussion aimed at carrying out analysis and quality assessments of the findings of the Report “Water Management and Gender in the Jamaican breadbasket” developed by the UNESCO Office for the Caribbean.
The focus group discussion made it possible to record the participants' experiences with how water scarcity and insecurity have affected their ability to support themselves and their family’s food security. The discussion also helped us to pinpoint barriers to adopting more effective and environmentally sustainable water management technology, which would lessen their vulnerability to water scarcity.
Finally, the workshop also involved the input of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and shed important light on the difficulties faced by rural women farmers and how they were coping with and reducing risk related to food and water insecurity in their day-to-day activities. The discussions' conclusions underscore the significance of involving rural women farmers in the formulation of intervention programs and paying close attention to their unique needs and circumstances.