Fayez Jadallah Al-Mikdad*⁽¹⁾ Wael Zaki Habeeb⁽²⁾ and Hani Soleman Al-Hassoun⁽¹⁾

 (1). Socio Economic Administration, General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research GCSAR, Damascus, Syria.

(2). Latakia Agricultural Research Center, GCSAR, Damascus, Syria.

(*Correspoding author: Dr. Fayez Jadallah Al-Mikdad. E-Mail: deepmokdad@yahoo.com).

Received: 20/05/2019                                Accepted: 23/06/2019

Abstract

Rural women in Syria, especially those working in agriculture, have low level of access to agricultural productive resources, markets, services and finance, despite their significant contribution to agricultural work. This research aimed to identify the patterns of empowerment of rural women in Daraa Governorate in Syria and the most important factors affecting their empowerment. To achieve this objective, the research depended on data from secondary sources as well as primary data collected through a questionnaire designed to serve research objectives. The research was carried out during 2017 in Daraa Governorate (Izra’a and Al Sanamin regions). The results indicated that 76% of rural women were in the low category of the empowerment scale, with 66% of them were having poor decision-making capacity for agricultural work, 76% were having poor ownership of productive resources and 67% were suffering poor access to extension services and low level of ability to join any organization. The results indicated that 16% of the observed women were at the med level of empowerment whereas only 6% of them were at the high level of empowerment. SOWT analysis noted that women had a high level of experience in agricultural work, but were not qualified enough to manage their own enterprise. Moreover, despite considerable government interest to empower rural women, they still have little access to productive inputs.

Keywords: Empowerment, Rural Women, Social Statistics, SWOT Analysis, Daraa, Syria.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF