Rural women: entitled to rights, leadership, and transformation

Every October 15, we commemorate the International Day of Rural Women, a date established by the United Nations to recognize the essential role rural women play in food production, environmental conservation, and community care. This year, we celebrate the women who plant, care for, and transform their territories.

In 2025, this observance takes place in a context marked by multiple crises—climate, food, economic, migration, and care—that threaten progress toward gender equality. According to the UN Secretary-General’s report on the situation of rural women and girls, 43% of the global population lives in rural areas. Of the 80% of people living in extreme poverty in rural settings, half are women. The report shows that inequality persists: rural women earn only 82 cents for every dollar men make in agriculture, and in many countries, only 29% of laws effectively guarantee equal land rights.

Given this situation, recognizing rural women as leaders of systemic change and key actors in social transformation is a political and ethical imperative.

The Political Declaration adopted during the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, reaffirmed that the economic autonomy and resilience of rural women are essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also urged States to eliminate digital, infrastructure, and social protection gaps in rural areas and called for gender-responsive rural budgeting. 

“Empowering rural women is fulfilling the promise of equality, climate justice, and sustainable development.” 

The change driven by rural women is structural and rooted in rights. It involves recognizing them as political subjects of systemic transformation to sustain life and the planet. UN Women works with other UN agencies, governments, civil society, and other stakeholders to promote joint action in four key areas: 

1. Right to natural and economic resources. Support legal reforms to ensure secure land tenure, access to water, energy, natural resources, and credit.
2. Care economies and sustainability. Bring a care perspective and create initiatives with rural women, including care services and entrepreneurship in the care sector. Promote rural care systems and sustainable energy to reduce the burden of unpaid work, thereby supporting fair development and climate resilience.
3. Leadership and political participation. Strengthen the meaningful participation of rural women in local, regional, and global governance spaces. Support networks and national frameworks that promote full and equitable decision-making.
4. Data, financing, and accountability. There is a need to modernize statistical systems: only 32% of national statistical laws include sex or gender disaggregation. 

In Latin America, several countries have reported concrete policies to strengthen rural women’s economic autonomy and access to productive resources. In Chile, the Strategy for Women’s Economic Autonomy (2022–2026) includes specific programs for rural, migrant, and Indigenous women. Its Rural Women’s Program, which promotes gender-responsive entrepreneurship, has supported over 3,000 rural women farmers; 40% increased their income, and production rose from 33.4% to 89.6%.  

Colombia has implemented a special land allocation program for rural women and support for women shellfish gatherers in marine ecosystem sustainability. To date, over 1,300 rural and peasant women in the Caribbean are advancing gender-responsive agrarian reform. As an immediate result, 45 peasant, Black, and Indigenous women in the Caribbean received land titles for more than 330 hectares, ensuring their autonomy, food security, and dignity.  
The region has also made progress in climate resilience and political participation of rural women. In Guatemala, the Gender and Climate Change Action Plan (2024) emerged as a collaborative and consensus-based proposal from diverse groups and incorporates gender and intersectional perspectives into environmental policies. In Jamaica, the youth forum “Rural Girls Rock” inspired participants to continue their education, innovate, and take on leadership roles in their communities, boosting their confidence and ability to promote rural development and food security.

In Uruguay, the “Guardians of the Earth” initiative brings together rural women who promote climate adaptation solutions through a community lens, strengthening their leadership, technical skills, and role in sustainable land management. Through training in agroecological practices, soil conservation, water efficiency, and productive diversification, participants contribute to the resilience of their communities in the face of climate change.

These experiences, supported by public policies and institutions like the MGAP and UNDP, have helped raise awareness of rural women as agents of change, promote knowledge-sharing networks, and foster evidence-based policies. Their real-world impact is reflected in more sustainable communities with greater economic autonomy, social cohesion, and capacity to influence decisions that affect their territories. 

“The voice of rural women must be heard in every decision that affects their land, their bodies, and their futures.” 

Since the 1990s, rural women in Latin America and the Caribbean have led struggles for joint land ownership, access to finance, rural credit, and environmental justice. Their demands echo across the region, insisting that rural women must not face discrimination in exercising their rights, including access to basic resources like drinking water and food production and distribution to ensure food security. They reaffirm the urgent need to promote food sovereignty to eradicate poverty and hunger, aligning with climate, fiscal, and gender justice movements.

In 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women, where the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were adopted, social movements and regional networks such as the Latin American and Caribbean Rural Women’s Network, the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas, the Network of Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women, CLOC-Vía Campesina, the Landless Movements, the Popular Education Network among Women, and the Organization of Peasant and Indigenous Women, among others, raised their voices to include the diversity of women’s demands and proposals. Today, these struggles are reflected in regional frameworks like the Inter-American Decade for the Rights of All Women, Adolescents, and Girls in Rural Areas (2024–2034), led by RedLAC and the OAS, among other initiatives.

These alliances are part of multiple efforts in education and collective organizing that translate into demands for public policies supporting a shared vision. Without rural women, there is no sustainability or climate justice. Fundamental transformation requires sustained political will, gender-responsive investment, and alliances among governments, civil society, and international organizations.

UN Women, as a strategic ally, will continue to support this path—because without justice for rural women, there will be no climate, food, or care justice.