Women represent about 20% of total farmers in Dominica and are primarily engaged in producing tuber and root crops and vegetables for both food self-sufficiency and local markets. They are largely engaged in subsistence agriculture to provide food for their households and participate as street and market vendors in the informal economy connected to the agriculture and fisheries sectors.[1]   As subsistence farmers, women play a critical role in ensuring food security, nutrition, and livelihoods in rural and urban communities. However, these forms of employment lack security, social protection is scarce and many of these women are the heads of single-parent households making them extremely vulnerable.[2] Despite the important role these women play, their voices are not being effectively heard.

Amplify these voices!

Through the joint programme, ‘Building Effective Resilience for Human Security: The Imperative of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in a Strengthened Agriculture Sector’ the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided technical support to women farming groups and other farming individuals in Dominica to strengthen the advocacy platform of women farmers – this intervention will allow women’s voices to be included in decisions related to improved policy development.

UNDP’s work focussed on building capacities for the utilization of the Community Score Card (CSC) as a tool to diagnose issues impacting farming groups while identifying solutions and the partnerships needed. This activity would help women farmers to apply a tested methodology when tackling issues affecting them within the sector. Areas included planning, assessing issues, and identifying possible solutions within their organizations through self-assessment prior to consultations and meetings with service providers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the sector. Speaking to the intervention’s success, not only at inclusion but also at promoting collaboration, Annette Bates, a 79 year old dasheen farmer stated, “The community score card brought us together with the extension officers and farmers and gave us the opportunity to see how we are part of the solution to our challenges and how together we could discuss solutions to solve them, and we are now engaged in planting a white potato demonstration plot with the Belles farmers group and some Warner farmers and that is a good thing”