{"id":19055,"date":"2021-10-13T17:20:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T17:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fundacionmicrofinanzasbbva.org\/revistaprogreso\/julio-nishikawa-gerente-del-programa-empoderamiento-economico-la-mujer-nutricion-seguridad-alimentaria-care-peru\/"},"modified":"2021-10-14T11:34:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T11:34:25","slug":"julio-nishikawa-gerente-del-programa-empoderamiento-economico-la-mujer-nutricion-seguridad-alimentaria-care-peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fundacionmicrofinanzasbbva.org\/revistaprogreso\/en\/julio-nishikawa-gerente-del-programa-empoderamiento-economico-la-mujer-nutricion-seguridad-alimentaria-care-peru\/","title":{"rendered":"Julio Nishikawa, Head of Women’s Economic Empowerment, Nutrition and Food Security Program, CARE Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CARE<\/span><\/a> was set up over 70 years ago and is working in 90 countries to eradicate poverty, save lives, and achieve social justice. As an organization it has been widely acknowledged for its unshakeable commitment to people\u2019s dignity. Specifically, CARE Peru has four work areas that reflect its multidisciplinary efforts to achieve its targets and that respond to key indicators aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. These are: women\u2019s development and economic inclusion and food security; social inclusion and vulnerable populations; climate change, the Amazon and water resource management; and risk management and emergency response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Julio Nishikawa is an agricultural engineer, with a master\u2019s degree from Peru\u2019s <\/span>Pontificia Universidad Cat\u00f3lica<\/span><\/i> (PUCP) in Social Management, and doctoral studies in Environment and Sustainable Development from that country\u2019s <\/span>Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal<\/span><\/i> (UNFV). He has attended specialized courses in Marketing Management at ESAN university, in production chain competitiveness from the US organization USAID, impact evaluation and environmental assessment from Canada\u2019s MEGAM, management of community relations and prevention of environmental conflicts in society at Business Solutions Group Peru, and social responsibility (Peru 2021).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He has extensive experience in the design, implementation, and assessment of sustainable development projects with International Cooperation and the corporate sector, favoring a gendered approach and intercultural outlook, particularly in economic inclusion and productive development, with a territorial and environmental perspective.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an international organization committed to eradicating poverty, CARE has a very strong focus on driving gender equality.<\/b> What are your current priorities? How have these changed or evolved as a result of the pandemic?<\/b><\/p>\n

For our organization, working for the empowerment and economic independence of women in vulnerability is one of our key strategies in contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals in Peru. It is the women who push through the transformational changes that are needed to improve living standards in homes and communities, to contribute effectively to eradicating hunger and reducing poverty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Innovations in digital and financial technologies are intrinsic to our program, necessary tools in our interventions to bring about greater access to finance and, above all, to the development of entrepreneurial and productive competences with a gendered approach. The current context, influenced by the Covid-19 crisis, has led us to develop and apply several digital solutions and virtual training methods to bring entrepreneurial women into contact with new technologies, virtual markets, financing opportunities and useful information about the trends and economic opportunities they can access for their businesses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The pandemic has without a doubt made more visible the digital and financial gaps that prevail in the rural and peri-urban environment, where the highest rates of inequality and poverty, and limited access to financial and non-financial support services, are to be found. At CARE Peru we have focused on making progress towards digital and financial inclusion, transferring from face-to-face training and technical assistance mechanisms to the predominant use of digital communications tools. A range of different virtual tools have been applied and developed in the course of this experience to strengthen entrepreneurial capacities through financial education modules. That is what we did with the \u201cLista\u201d app for mobiles and tablets, developed by our strategic partner Fundaci\u00f3n Capital, while we are currently at the development stage of new apps such as \u201cEmprende App\u201d, the \u201cEmpreSara\u201d platform, and \u201cSkillEd\u201d, all of which will be applied in our gendered-approach training programs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several communications channels with entrepreneurial women have been activated using WhatsApp groups, Zoom, Facebook, tablets, mobile messaging, and phone calls, as well as public information broadcasts on local radio stations, leafleting and educational materials printed especially for those homes without internet access [1]<\/span>.<\/span> These actions have been spearheaded through the projects in CARE Peru\u2019s women\u2019s economic empowerment program and they are coordinated with the various public and private actors present in the territories where we intervene.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Women play a key role in rural development as stewards of the land and custodians of food security.\u00a0 Nevertheless, although 60 million women in Latin America produce 80% of the region\u2019s food, only 30% of them own land, and a mere 5% have access to technical assistance.<\/b> Could you summarize what needs to change to close these access gaps?<\/b><\/p>\n

In the last few decades and particularly during the pandemic, these and other associated gaps, such as access to formal lending and to group marketing, have been widening. Structural changes about land ownership and efforts to rectify these inequalities are increasingly complicated because demographic growth is speeding up, especially in city areas where the spaces for farming are shrinking. This is further aggravated by the hereditary succession of farming land, which causes fragmentation, weakens the aggregation of supply and favors men\u2019s ownership over women\u2019s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the pandemic, it became obvious that women\u2019s burden of housework and unpaid care work had increased significantly as a result of working from home and remote learning for girls and boys of school age. Likewise, women were also very affected by the surge in domestic violence and the adverse economic effects of the pandemic, and especially by their greater exposure to working in unsafe conditions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, solutions should be directed towards fomenting equitable conditions for the fair and equal use of productive resources and family assets. Ownership over land should not be a limitation to empowering farming women. We see very clear examples of women who rent land to produce and access the market on a competitive footing, women who without having land title successfully assume leadership and the management of family plots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have seen that supply in the formal financial market predominates mainly in the urban and peri-urban environment; therefore other important challenges in the financial inclusion area are the need to extend access to financial services, as well as technical assistance to the country\u2019s rural areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Financial literacy programs, whether run by the state and non-governmental organizations or the corporate sector, must be expanded, with an emphasis on saving, financial health and the understanding of, and information about, the various services and financial products available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New financial products tailored to women users\u2019 specific needs for different topics and territorial realities must be created:<\/span><\/p>\n