On the empowerment of women, our country is grappling with the challenge of unemployment and poverty. As we seek solutions to this challenge, we have to acknowledge that women constitute the majority of the unemployed and the rural poor in this country. As part of our first-quarter plans for 2011-12 we held a national Rural Women's Summit in Limpopo last year, through which we provided a platform for sharing information on how to access various programmes provided by departments involved in the development of the rural poor.