Annabell Waititu, Executive Director of IEWM and WOCAN Core Associate, presented the W+ Standard at the ‘Rural Women Technology Upscaling’ organized by UN Women at the Rockefeller Bellagio Centre from 28 April – 2 May in Bellagio, Italy. The conference offered an opportunity for the Technology Upscaling Group to meet for the first time to review the Sharefair technologies and others and identify promising innovations that are suitable to the circumstances of rural women and provide viable, sustainable and inclusive agricultural and resilient enhancing solutions to women in rural areas and agree on a strategy for up-scaling of these.
This initiative is also expected to provide vital inputs and contribute indicators to current policy and programmatic frameworks such as the review of the Beijing +20 commitments regarding gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as the development of Sustainable Development Goals which will supersede the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and of which gender equality will be a central component. The objective of the conference is to generate a menu of affordable and relevant technologies that can be suitable to the circumstances of rural women and bring these to scale in the ESA region through a combination of policy- and programmatic experiences. The Conference will also engage in providing the elements for a strategy for technology upscaling.