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International Women's day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women . In most developing countries, women produce the bulk of the world’s food crops. Yet women face greater constraints than men, and lack the means, the services and the opportunities to increase their yields and their earnings. This year, the UN theme for the day is “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, time and again we witnessed how the women of Haiti took things in hand and provided the necessary for their families, friends and their community.

IFAD’s first two projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina responded to the need for emergency assistance in a country devastated by war. Once that need diminished, IFAD’s third project marked a transition from immediate relief and rehabilitation to long-term sustainable development, helping stimulate growth in farming-related and non-agricultural rural businesses. The project gave special attention to youth and to women, who with training and microfinance services, were able to kick-start small businesses that are benefiting their communities.

Thanks to an IFAD-supported programme in north-east Ghana, women’s groups are still building their small-scale ruminant-breeding businesses, feeding their families and sending their children to school 13 years on. Their success inspired other women in the region to follow suit. The programme also had a number of spin-off successes, including the development of three improved varieties of cassava, the nation’s staple crop, which led to a nationwide programme for roots and tubers.

Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words. Six years ago, the Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT) was losing around US$290,000 a year. By 2006, it was posting annual profits of US$1.87 million and changing the lives of more than 100,000 poor women. By any standard, this is a remarkable turnaround. But behind the numbers lies an even more remarkable story.

Located in the Mascarene Islands, the Republic of Mauritius includes the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues. The islands are known for their natural beauty: white beaches, crystal-clear turquoise-colored water and spectacular lagoons with magnificent coral reefs. These natural attractions have made the islands a tourist destination and the hub of a thriving tourist industry. Since Mauritius gained independence in 1968, it has adopted sound economic policies and has risen from the rank of a low-income country to occupy a place among the middle-income countries. The government has a policy of medium-term expenditure budgeting and is implementing a programme-based budget.

The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) estimates that approximately 1.5 billion people depend in some way or another on bamboo and rattan. Bamboo not only is deemed to be the fastest growing plant on the planet, it also is a viable replacement for wood, an essential structural material in earthquake architecture and a renewable source for agroforesty production. These characteristics make bamboo unique in terms of its potential contribution to sustainable development. What is less well known is the fact that bamboo has helped protect young Tanzanian girls and women from HIV/AIDS by saving them from the trap of prostitution. This is thanks to a Tanzanian woman by the name of Pauline Samata.

As one of 15 wives of a Masai Chief, Monica Mhadi's life has always been better off than other women in her village in rural Tanzania. Even so, she lost four of her seven children because of poor sanitary conditions. Luckily,such tragedies are no longer an inevitable part of Monica's world.

Women have always had an important role in Eritrean society. During the struggle for independence they helped transform Eritrean society, and today rural women contribute substantially to the agriculture sector and provide income for their households.
Like women around the world and especially those in developing countries, the women in Eritrea’s Gash Barka region start the day’s activities bright and early. They not only do the household chores, but are also fully engaged in agricultural activities.

The fish stock in the spectacular lagoon of the island of Rodrigues is becoming depleted. As a result, octopus fishers like Lima Casmir need to find alternative sources of income.

An IFAD-supported project in Mexico helps a women’s group set up a sheep farm. One participant tells her story.

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Albania -- Marime Korbi lives in Kukes, Albania, and is the owner of the Ervin company, which specializes in the production of high quality organic alcoholic and fruit drinks. Her business emerged intact from the transition from the socialist system, although it was ill prepared to enter a competitive market with its low output and antiquated production technology. Now Ervin is a flourishing producer of fruit juices and high quality raki, a traditional alcoholic drink made from local plums and grapes. It is the only producer of its kind in the north-east of the country.

Romania -- The IFAD-financed Apuseni Development Project helps strengthen the economy of Romania’s rural mountain communities by promoting on- and off-farm enterprises and providing rural development services. The Apuseni revolving credit fund offers investment and working loans to people who qualify for them.

Azerbaijan -- Nardane Umuyeva lives in the village of Vandam in the district of Gabala. She is 45 years old and looks after her sick mother and a nephew, who is a student at the university in the capital, Baku. She inherited a small shop from her father. After the republic became independent, her sole source of income was her mother’s pension and a small profit from the shop.

A microcredit loan can make all the difference in transforming a failing small business into a flourishing one. A precarious enterprise run by a widowed mother of three in a remote, post-conflict community of Armenia has become a financially viable business, thanks to a microcredit loan provided through an IFAD-supported project. The business has also stimulated the local economy, providing small-scale dairy farmers with added income.

In the decades since Mauritius gained independence in 1968, it has joined the ranks of the middle-income countries. Severe poverty is rare in comparison to other parts of Africa, but there are pockets of poverty in the northern and eastern parts of the island of Mauritius and on Rodrigues Island, which is substantially poorer. An IFAD-funded programme, started in April 2000, is helping more than 15,000 poor smallholder farmers, artisanal fishers and microentrepreneurs diversify their incomes and improve their way of life.

Maryline Legoff is a rural entrepreneur. She is 35 years old and a single mother with a 5-year-old son. Maryline lives on the island of Rodrigues, 640 kilometers off the island of Mauritius. For Maryline and the 38,000 people who live on Rodrigues, fishing is a way of life. But their livelihoods are threatened by declining fish stocks.

An IFAD-funded project in the Dir district has pioneered a new approach to rural financing that conforms to Islamic regulations. In its initial phase it has helped women set up micro-enterprises. In just nine years it has demonstrated how economic and social empowerment can transform women’s status and self-esteem. 

Since 2005, IFAD projects in the Andean region have been holding national and regional competitions that provide recognition and economic support to small-scale businesses run by women’s associations. They also encourage women to share their ideas in public. This way everybody wins: the groups that are awarded prizes, and the other participants, who learn new and better ways to solve problems.

Women in Madagascar, as in other parts of the developing world, are slowly gaining more economic power through step-by-step involvement in new projects. They have proved to be highly responsible managers, sometimes more so than their male counterparts. Yet despite apparent progress they are still under-represented in the local economy and more often than not they are unaware of their possibilities.

Bosnia and Herzegovina -- As a single mother, Ljubica Rados was struggling to earn enough to support herself and her children. She lives in the municipality of Gornji Vakuf - Uskoplje, an area that is famous for its forest vegetation. With some past experience as a retailer, she decided to use her experience in the trading business to set up her own business collecting and trading forest products. She was taking on a major responsibility, but she soon found people to work with, gained their trust and began to build up her business. In 2000 she registered her company, Flores, which specializes in medicinal herbs and mushrooms for export.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Srpska -- Kalinovik is a small town in the Bosnian Serb Republic of Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once a prosperous Austro-Hungarian military stronghold, it is now a poor rural municipality on the country’s border, with a population of only 2,500. It has little to offer its inhabitants in the way of leisure pursuits. There are no cinemas, beauty salons or theatres. Many people have left in search of better lives elsewhere.

Lusik Harutinunyan trained and worked as a teacher before the collapse of the Soviet system and the civil war that followed. Like many other people who lived through these events, her life changed radically. She lost her job and her assets and was forced to abandon her profession and turn to farming to feed and support her family.

Republic of Moldova - Gaina Aliona used to work as a teacher in the village school. After the collapse of the Soviet system, her salary was reduced to a tiny fraction of what she had been receiving and she was forced to look elsewhere for work to support her family.

Republic of Moldova - Valentina Colesnic lives in the village of Zgurita in the northern part of the Republic of Moldova. She worked as a nurse in the local hospital until the collapse of the Soviet system. In 1989 she turned to farming, encouraging three doctors’ families to rent eight hectares of arable land. Together they cultivated vegetables on the plot, with excellent results, but they were forced to stop when they were no longer able to continue renting the land.

Along with Natural Resource Management Groups, Self Help Groups comprise the bulk of the activities within IFAD’s North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for Upland Areas (NERCRMP).

This video documented as in Nonglang village in the West Khasi Hills district poor women have seen benefit in forming and working together in SHGs.

While micro-credit has been the focus, women’s organization into SHGs has brought other social benefits too.

Lucy Mansa is a cocoa farmer who makes her living by growing and selling cocoa beans. She lives in a small village in Ghana called Fenaso Domeabra.

Most of the cocoa beans grown in Ghana are sent to the UK and other countries in Europe where they are made into chocolate. The price farmers receive for their cocoa beans is often very low and few of them can afford to buy chocolate.

The videos focus on trafficking in men, women and children for bonded and forced labour (e.g. in factories, fields or as domestic servants).

A three-minute web film showing some of the ways women are impacted by war.