STATEMENT - On this International Day of Rural Women 2025, ActionAid Rwanda joins the global community in celebrating the strength, resilience, and leadership of women living in rural settings. We call for bold action to advance their equality, rights, and empowerment. Every day, rural women feed communities, protect the environment, and power sustainable development. Investing in them is both an act of justice and a safeguard for our shared future.
For generations, rural women have been at the forefront of collective initiatives for change, mobilizing communities, influencing policies, and championing vital issues such as climate justice and economic inclusion. Their leadership continues to build bridges between local action and global progress, even as rural areas are hit hardest by poverty, food insecurity, negative effects of climate change, etc. If current trends persist, 351 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030.
In Rwanda, although significant progress has been made, rural women still face persistent challenges. Additionally, they continue to experience unpaid care work, gender-based violence, and limited access to property, resources, and opportunities. ActionAid Rwanda remains deeply committed to addressing these barriers through the implementation of its Country Strategy Paper III (2024–2028): “Empowerment for Poverty Reduction and Social Justice.”
Through this strategy, we aim to promote women’s economic justice, climate-resilient livelihoods, and the recognition and redistribution of unpaid care work, among others. We also continue to strengthen women’s voice and leadership in decision-making spaces, ensuring that policies and programs respond to their realities and aspirations.
Under the global theme “The Rise of Rural Women: Building Resilient Futures with Beijing+30” and Rwanda’s national theme, “Umugore ni Uw’Agaciro – A Woman is of Value,” this year’s commemoration serves as both a tribute and a call to action. Advancing rural women’s livelihoods, leadership, rights, and resilience as outlined in the Beijing+30 Action Agenda is essential. Global and national initiatives provide vital platforms to make women’s work visible, their voices heard, and their rights recognized.
When rural women rise, fields flourish, families thrive, and societies transform, propelling us toward the vision of the Beijing Declaration.
ActionAid Rwanda reaffirms its unwavering commitment to advancing gender equality and social justice, ensuring that rural women and girls live free from poverty, discrimination, and violence.