From Awareness to Action: Embedding the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in JP RWEE

The JP RWEE team participated in the FAO-organized Subregional event on the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (VG-GEWGE) held in Tanzania in the last week of April 2026. The event aimed to strengthen understanding of the VG-GEWGE among seven participating countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The workshop helped raise awareness, increase knowledge, and promote uptake of the Guidelines among national stakeholders. An important outcome of the event was the initiation of a shared learning process on the guidelines, encouraging knowledge exchange and strengthening a sense of ownership among countries.

The JP RWEE team, both at global and national levels, was well represented and actively engaged throughout the event. This participation helped highlight the strategic role of JP RWEE in supporting the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines. One key takeaway is that JP RWEE provides a coordinated platform that reduces fragmentation, allowing the VG to serve as a guiding benchmark across programme interventions. At the same time, JP RWEE offers a practical model and entry point for showcasing implementation experiences at regional and global levels.

Building on this momentum, a Task Force formation and Inception Meeting was held in early June to establish a National Multi Stakeholder Task Force. This platform will coordinate the dissemination, awareness raising, and uptake of the Voluntary Guidelines in synergy with JP RWEE. The meeting resulted in clear agreement on roles and responsibilities, as well as a strong commitment from members to champion and promote the Guidelines within their respective institutions.

Following these engagements, the programme reflected on how to better integrate the Voluntary Guidelines at the operational level for remainder period of the programme. JP RWEE will embed the VG within existing community level platforms and gender transformative approaches, such as gender champions, Dimitra groups, and peer networks. This will help translate the Guidelines into practical behaviour change and strengthen local dialogue processes.

In addition, the programme will use its already established and increasingly self sustaining platforms-such as women leaders’ networks, community dialogues, and men’s engagement groups as key channels for VG dissemination. These platforms will continue to support awareness, peer learning, and advocacy beyond the programme period.

The Voluntary Guidelines will also be integrated into technical and livelihood interventions. For example, agricultural and value chain activities will incorporate VG principles related to women’s access to land, markets, and productive resources. At the same time, the promotion of labour  and time saving technologies will contribute to reducing unpaid care work, while financial inclusion efforts will strengthen women’s participation in economic systems.

At the policy level, the programme will support the integration of the Voluntary Guidelines through capacity building initiatives for policymakers, local government authorities, and institutions. This will help ensure long term sustainability through stronger institutional ownership and alignment with national systems.

Overall, JP RWEE will continue to actively promote the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines and leverage the strong synergies between the programme and the Guidelines to advance rural women’s economic empowerment.