Women carry water home near Kairouan. Summers are hot and dry in Tunisia and year-long water sources are often scarce. In 1986, delegates of 26 member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at the eighteenth Regional Conference for the Near East, requested closer collaboration with FAO in programmes to integrate rural women into agricultural and rural development. The delegates urged member countries to make laws providing equal rights for men and women, particularly in access to land and farm inputs and requested continued FAO support for projects addressing women's multiple roles as food producers, mothers and home-makers. - - General: General.