The WOCAN team organized the W+ Standard application training for the World Bank Nepal’s Forest for Prosperity Project from 4-9 April in Butwal, Nepal. This training was part of the contract with the Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes (PROGREEN) to build a Gender Certification Capacity for Landscape Projects. PROGREEN supports rural livelihood development and landscape restoration while tackling declining biodiversity, forest loss, and deteriorating land fertility. PROGREEN’s Gender and Vulnerability Program aims to help project teams and partners address the gender gaps. It identifies potential gender-responsive, cross-cutting activities for PROGREEN initiatives, as well as potential project/country-specific activities.
The training participants were nominated by REDD Implementation Center (REDD IC) and World Bank Nepal. There were 15 participants (13 women and 2 men) representing FPP project staff from Lumbini and Madhesh Province, World Bank Staff, FPP project stakeholders, and partners. The participants were purposely selected to meet the following criteria:
- Participants should have some experience with gender and/or social inclusion integration into project design/planning
- Participants who have experience in forestry or who are actively involved in the forestry sector are preferred.
- Experience/ or willingness to learn to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data
- Willingness to go beyond ‘advocacy’ approaches to gender and social inclusion, and become familiar with research approaches
- Have a long-term commitment to engage in capacity development
- Willingness and commitment to complete the full training course (6 days W+ infield training followed by 12 months of intermittent coaching and monitoring and 4/5 days for measurement of results).
- Participants could be staff members from:
- Government and non-governmental organizations, federations/ networks, or the private sectors, from federal, provincial or municipality levels
- Both female and male candidates representing diverse social groups and thematic disciplines
The training included five steps:
Step 1 Introduction to the W+ Standard
Step 2 Developing Project Idea Note (PIN)
Step 3 Developing Project Design Document (PDD)
Step 4 Conducting Baseline
Step 5 Developing Monitoring Results and Report