The decision to create the ROPPA women’s college was taken very early on, at the second ROPPA convention. In February 2003, a meeting was organized in Kanelaï in The Gambia in order to define the contours and specific objectives of the women’s college.
The ROPPA Women’s College is a space for discussion and consultation and the defense of women’s interests within ROPPA. It allows women from different platforms to better contribute, based on their own expectations, to building a West African peasant movement representative of all components of the rural world.
More specifically, the ROPPA women’s college aims to:
- Promote the expression of specific concerns of women within family farms for their inclusion in programs and policies
- Play a role of representation and spokesperson for women at the sub-regional and international level through ROPPA;
- Enable women to assert themselves and strengthen their position in peasant organizations
- Give visibility to the experiences of farmer organizations in promoting women’s economic activities and taking gender issues into account in agricultural policies Promoting actions to professionalize women in family farms
- Define strategies to meet the challenges and issues related to their participation in agricultural development
