This Global Landscape Forum (GLF) brief highlights successful examples of gender-responsive forest landscape restoration projects and programs such as the application of the W+ Standard to measure women’s empowerment in the WBG-supported REDD+ programs in Nepal and Indonesia. The application of the W+ Standard demonstrated that many ‘forest smart’ interventions involve saving time and efficient use of water and fuelwood, which are particularly beneficial to women. For example, the W+ certification has been used in biogas digester projects with women’s groups in Nepal and Indonesia. This has resulted in measured and verified energy and time savings for women, along with improvements in income, assets and leadership capacity. The W+ Standard is also being applied in agroforestry-, water- and food-related projects across Africa and Asia.
The authors also identify critical gender constraints/issues/gaps that can influence desired project outcomes, and recommend actions/strategies to address them.
These include actions that
- develop women’s leadership skills and enable their role in governance;
- enhance women’s active participation in forest landscape projects and programs;
- strengthen land and tree tenure rights;
- design equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms;
- support inclusive, local, forest and agricultural
- institutions, governance structures, networks and platforms;
- strengthen women’s access to finance for forest, agroforestry and energy access through technologies, activities and enterprises;
- build women’s knowledge and technical skills;
- measure results/impacts of all of the above.
Authors: Patti Kristjanson, Katharina Siegmann, Zeina Afif, Katherine Manchester (WBG), Jeannette Gurung (WOCAN)
Source: CIFOR
