On Rural Women’s Day, the Gender Agriculture Partnership (GAP) and the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) celebrate the talents of women farmers around the world.

First released in 2012, “Changing Lives in Africa”, tells inspiring stories of women and the communities whose lives have been positively impacted by the work of UN Women. On this day, GFAR and the GAP, would like to highlight some of these stories as testimony to the hard work that UN Women has done, and continues to do, with others, in empowering women and girls so that they are independent, gain equality and can strive for better lives for themselves and their families.

• 450 women dairy farmers and milk producers in Burkina Faso gain economic independence
• Selling brooms and food builds homes – women cross-border traders in the Great Lakes
• Savings and loans provide business opportunities and economic empowerment to 34 women in Liberia
• Weaving for a better life – “Agaseke” changes the lives of 2,000 women in Rwanda
• Binga women venture into the non-traditional fishing industry – thanks to the First Women’s Savings and Credit Union of Zimbabwe

The full set of stories published by UN Women in 2012 are available here.

Photo credit: ©FAO/Seyllou Diallo