CEDAW/C/1996/3/Add.4 English Page 3 III. SUBSTANTIVE ACTIONS TO IMPLEMENT THE PLAN A. Project development and monitoring 5. Project development and monitoring activities and related regular programme support undertaken in 1994-1995 to implement the Plan are wide-ranging. However, owing to space limitations this section presents only a representative sampling from three FAO action areas: extension and technical training; environment, natural resource management and sustainable development; and nutrition and food security. 1. Extension and technical training Mainstreaming women in training 6. In Nepal, to counter the mobility problems of rural women, the Animal Production and Health Division created a mobile training unit in Nepal that travelled directly to villages and, as a consequence, women came to constitute 45 per cent of all trainees. Similarly, in Latin America, the Division held training courses as one-day events so as better to accommodate women’s schedules; women now constitute 60 per cent of all trainees and 55 per cent of attendees at project-related meetings. This training also includes information on how legally to register community groups, which 21 women’s groups and associations have now done. In the Gambia, the Division sought to improve animal management and marketing skills of 10,000 women farmers through the construction of demonstration sites in selected villages. 7. In a number of vegetable marketing projects in Lesotho and Nepal, the Agricultural Services Division is assisting extension services to provide a package of rural services for women, including training in production planning, improved post-harvest techniques and producer-market linkages. The fertilizer projects of the Land and Water Development Division include farmers’ field days focusing on the roles and responsibilities of women in plant nutrition, vegetable production, plant nutrient management and group vegetable gardening. Reorienting agricultural and home economics curricula 8. FAO is assisting member nations to train present and future agricultural extensionists and home economists in the importance of technical and managerial training for rural women to better understand how to deliver appropriate services to women. 9. To serve better rural families, the Division on Women and People’s Participation in Development assisted the Governments of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Hungary, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Tunisia and Uganda to reorient their agricultural extension training and delivery systems to make them more participatory, and client and gender-responsive. Close links established with regional groups such as the Home Economics Association for Africa and the Asian Regional Association for Home Economics helped to evaluate home economics training and to reorient curricula so as to meet rural families’ needs. /...