Empowered Women and the Men Behind Them:Creating Gender Equality in Forestry in Nepal

Gender mainstreaming ensures that gender perspectives and gender equality are central to all development activities. To date, however, efforts to mainstream gender perspectives into development projects and institutions have met with only limited success. It is increasingly clear that the role of men in gender mainstreaming is critical, yet poorly understood. Understanding men’s roles is particularly important and challenging in sectors that they dominate, such as forestry.
This presentation will highlight an example of successful mainstreaming of gender into Nepalese forestry activities. The success of this innovative IFAD project led to the creation of the “WOCAN model” for achieving gender equality at the community level. This approach promotes the leadership of women in agriculture and natural resource management by partnering professional women with local rural women. Among the key factors to the project’s success were the involvement of local rural women, the leadership provided by the two project leaders, and the support of women by men in the local communities. The willingness of the male project managers to grant autonomy to a three-woman gender team was another important element. An unintended consequence of the project was that it changed the organizational culture of the implementing agencies by making them more responsive to the realities of rural women.
Please RSVP by Monday, 3 December to Bonnie Harris at 202-331-9099 or b.harris@ifad.org