Abstract
In recent years, non-governmental organizations across the globe aim to improve women’s leadership in adapting to the environmental challenges brought on by climate change. Many of these activities involve outreach and network building and, in the process, seek to establish protocols for specific projects and interventions. In this chapter, the authors review the history of development funding, and then present and analyze a different model, a pilot project based in Nepal that encourages monetary contributions from outside of the country to support women’s work in climate change adaptation and mitigation as a result of deforestation. The W+ Standard is a certification label that endorses projects that socially and economically empower women and improve the environment. It was developed to measure and quantify women’s work in these areas to enable them to receive monetary benefits from promoting biogas cookstoves. The authors assess the economic and social benefits and drawbacks of this model and complement our critique with interview data from the creator of the W+ Standard, and climate change leader, Jeannette Gurung. The authors conclude by giving recommendations for program monitoring and evaluation that can be applied to projects in similar areas.
Authors: Peggy Spitzer Christorr and Jamie M. Sommer
Source: Advances in Gender Research Volume 27: Gender and Practice: Insights from the Field.
