1.12.2016

The second meeting of the year on the "Women's Roundtable" took place on November 30th. It was attended by approximately twenty participants, representatives of eight rural women's organizations, as well as officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food, and Environment (MAPAMA). These meetings, organized by the National Rural Network, are held periodically (twice a year) and are intended to serve as a platform between rural women and MAPAMA.

The meeting began with MAPAMA explaining the 2017 grant applications for "Rural Women's Organizations" and "Pluriregional Programs," published on November 19 and 22, respectively. Participants took the opportunity to address any questions they had about these grants.

Reference was also made to the activities carried out by the RRN this year at the suggestion of rural women's organizations. Among these workshops, the workshops "Entrepreneurship and Empowerment of Women in Rural Areas," proposed by CERES, and "Female Entrepreneurship: The Cultivation of Dye Plants as Sustainable Methods," proposed by FEMUR and coordinated by the RRN in 2016, stood out for their success.

MAPAMA encouraged rural women's organizations to actively collaborate in disseminating rural development policy, offering their assistance in publicizing the activities of rural women's associations through the RRN's communication tools, such as the monthly newsletter, the magazine, and the website.

The quality of the applications for the 2016 Innovation Excellence Awards was particularly highlighted, with the Minister and the EU Agriculture Commissioner participating in the awards ceremony.

At the end of the session, the Director General of Rural Development and Forestry Policy, Begoña Nieto Gilarte, stated that women must achieve economic independence through employment and entrepreneurship training, with the goal of reaching leadership positions where they will have sufficient influence to continue improving the situation of women in rural areas. Nieto emphasized the responsibility of women's organizations to provide this training to rural women.