ABSTRACT

Most of the world’s poor are women. Of the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 a day, 70 per cent are women (UNDP 1995). Women are at the forefront in meeting the basic needs of their families as well as being responsible for subsistence food production and income generation. At least 80 per cent of all food crops in sub-Saharan Africa, 70-80 per cent in South Asia, and 50 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean are produced by women (UNDP 1995). Globally, women account for half of the world’s food production in the early twenty-first century (60-80 per cent in developing countries), and are the main producers of staple food crops, rice, wheat and maize, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The majority of micro-and small-scale enterprise operators are women, and there are more women than men employed in the informal sector (Sethuraman 1998). Women more than men assume responsibility for the care of children, the sick, the incapacitated and the elderly, while also playing an important role in community organization, protection of natural resources and safeguarding of rights.