This brief provides a framework and set of recommendations for enhancing gender equality and women’s rights in and through Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) initiatives. It presents key considerations for gender-responsive FLR, drawing on lessons from the wider gender and natural resource management literature, ongoing and past restoration, and relevant initiatives to alter local land uses for global conservation and development goals.
Key messages
- The essence of gender-responsive Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) is ensuring that women and men at all levels have equal voice and influence in strategic decisions related to FLR, and that this contributes to substantive equality in outcomes for women and men.
- ‘Free and Prior Informed Consent’, ‘fair’ and ‘just’ compensation, and impartial and effective grievance mechanisms for all those affected are critical to safeguarding the rights of local and indigenous women and men.
- Decisions about target areas for restoration, choice of stakeholders for FLR governance and how to include them, restoration approaches, priority species and how to monitor progress should be made following gender-inclusive participatory processes to capitalize on the knowledge and experiences of both women and men.
- Mechanisms and measures at various scales are required to equitably distribute benefits and costs associated with restoration for both women and men in participating communities.
Authors: Bimbika Sijapati Basnett, Marlène Elias, Markus Ihalainen and Ana Maria Paez Valencia
Source: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
