The Government of Iraq and UN Women work together for rural women

Baiyan Nouri, Minister of Women Affairs (to the right) and Sadiq Syed, UN Women Representative (to the left) sign the agreement for joint project on “Economic Development of Rural Women in Iraq” on 9 July. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Iraq.

To improve the socioeconomic status of rural women and young girls in selected governorates in Iraq, the Government of Iraq and the United Nations signed a USD 2.5 million dollar joint-project on “Socio-Economic Development of Rural Women” on 9 July. Attending the event were Iraq’s Minister for Women’s Affairs, Baiyan Nouri, and UN Women Representative Sadiq Syed, as UN Women will be the lead implementing organization, in partnership with three other UN agencies (FAO, UNFPA and UNESCO).

This project will teach literacy and basic social and functional life-skills, as well as mobilize female agricultural outreach workers to impart knowledge and establish agricultural groups to increase the income and productivity of rural women and girls. It will engage women in outreach programmes, by setting up a network of rural women volunteers to conduct community mobilization on gender-based violence issues, all-the-while empowering them through leadership networks, rural associations or collectives and self-help groups.

Read the full press release on the website of our Regional Office for the Arab States.