Harnessing the power of women and youth in Honduras rural development

SEI and the Inter-American Development Bank join efforts to propose strategies that guarantee gender equity and inclusion of young people in initiatives that promote rural development in Honduras.

Active project

2019

Project contact

Ivonne Lobos Alva / ivonne.lobos@sei.org

Women in Honduras — Women selecting and cleaning fruits in Honduras.

According to 2018 figures from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), more than 60% of the population of Honduras lives in a level of poverty that has not been reduced permanently despite multiple attempts, both by the government and international donors, in recent years. The situation is less favourable in rural areas.

The agricultural sector is the main source of employment in Honduras and currently faces great challenges that include climate change, economic inequality, declining prices on export products and low investment, which has restricted its sustainable development compared to Other countries in the region. In addition to this are the high migration rates to other countries in search of better opportunities that leave gaps in the workforce for the Honduran rural sector. For this reason, the pursuit for strategies to increase productivity, improve competitiveness and make more sustainable use of the country’s resources is increasingly important.

Within this context, women and youth in Honduras have become potential agents of change that will be able to face the challenges and seize opportunities that lead to the transformation of the rural sector in Honduras. However, they need focused and personalized activities that allow them to catalyse this role in their country. Thus, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) will support the formulation of a strategy for gender equity and inclusion of young people in the main components of the Integral Rural Development Program (HO-L1201), led by the Inter-American Development Bank.

SEI has extensive experience in this area thanks to its initiative on Social and Gender Equity, which seeks to address the knowledge and policy gaps related to social and gender equality to inform, advance and be inclusive in issues related to sustainable development. With this experience, SEI proposes to examine sustainable agricultural development from the perspective of poverty alleviation.

This in order to identify strategies or activities that support agriculture, the livestock sector, marketing activities and become an engine of equitable development. These activities or measures will focus on promoting development, including strategies to increase access to financing, for small farmers and farm workers, specifically targeting youth and women.

Support the development of a proposal that incorporates strategies for gender equity and youth inclusion in the priority clusters of the integral and productive development program HO-L1021 and that promotes the potential of young people and women as a driving force for innovation and transformation in the country.

It is framed in the 2030 Agenda and more specifically, in the contribution to the achievement of SDG 2 (end hunger), taking into account that this can only be done in harmony with the scope of other objectives and, therefore, can only achieved through thorough collaboration and planned synergies. The alignment of this project with the objective of Zero Hunger will be closely related to SDG 1, “Non-poverty”; SDG 8, “Decent working conditions / economic growth”; SDG 5, “Gender equality”; SDG 15, “Ecosystems and biodiversity”, SDG 13, “Climate action”; and SDG 16, “Peace, justice and strong institutions”, and indirectly with many of the other SDGs.

It will also combine the conceptual framework on ways of empowerment used by the International Agriculture Network SIANI2 and a participatory technique for the development of future visions (scenarios), developed by scientists of the SEI.