Focus on Gender - July 2015 - Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

Dear friends and colleagues,
Welcome to the fifth issue of Focus on Gender, the newsletter from the Gender Integration Team of the research programme on Forests, Trees, and Agroforestry (FTA).This newsletter is meant to serve as a mechanism for knowledge sharing, especially on good practices and lessons learned. It is a product of the collaboration between the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bioversity International, and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) as part of the CGIAR’s Research Programme on Forest, Trees and Agroforestry.

We are counting on your knowledge, information and experiences. Please feel free to share with us any gender-focused resources, tools or information you may have. Your comments and feedback on the newsletter are welcome and encouraged. To get in touch, please email Ana Maria Paez Valencia.

Warm regards,
The FTA Gender Integration Team

Thoughts on Gender

Gender Equality: What role for agricultural and NRM innovation?

By Patti Petesch, CIMMYT consultant and expert advisor to GENNOVATE

“GENNOVATE: Enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation is a qualitative, comparative field study reaching 125 villages across 25 countries where the CGIAR is active. The research explores—from the bottom up—differences in women’s and men’s capacities to access, adopt, and benefit from innovations in agriculture and natural resource management.” Read more.

Featured Project & Researcher

Project: Navigating Investment and Dispossession: Gendered Impacts of the Oil Palm ‘Land Rush’ in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. For a detailed description of the project, click here.

Researcher: Dr. Rebecca Elmhirst, Principal Lecturer, University of Brighton

“It’s important not only to recognize gender as a critical variable, but also to do away with some of the assumptions that we’ve made about gender – about seeing women always as victims, about seeing women as somehow lacking in agency…”

To read the full interview with Elmhirst, click here.

Focus on Gender Research

This is a brief update on selected gender-related research that is ongoing within the CGIAR research programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

Gender implications of agroforestry options in northwest Vietnam (contact: Delia Catacutan)

For details, click here.

Enhancing the gender-responsiveness of value chain tools to improve smallholder livelihoods (contact: Marlène Elias)

For details, click here.

Gender integration in the Nyimba Forest project, Zambia (contact: Roselyne Mwila; read more here.)

Gender dynamics in consultation and decision-making mechanisms in forest concessions in the Republic of Congo (contact: Eulalie Guillaume; read more here)

For a list of all of CIFOR’s gender-related projects, please click here.

Partnership to expand LINK methodology to NTFP value chains in Nicaragua and Honduras

For details, click here.

News & Highlights

Bioversity International scientist Hugo Lamers tells us about the power of street theatre to explain concepts to communities such as market competition and value chains. Featured is an example of a street theatre play on selling and marketing tropical fruit trees in India, acted in collaboration with the Life Trust NGO.

Palmed off: Women lose in West Kalimantan oil palm boom (CIFOR)

That tricky gender thing: Lessons from Amazonia (CIFOR)

ICRAF prepares Gates Foundation proposal to empower women farmers (ICRAF)

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Publications

The story of a Community of Practice: How it began, Planning it into life, and Coalescing and launching (Bioversity)

Social Impacts of Oil Palm in Indonesia: A Gendered Perspective from West Kalimantan (CIFOR)

Can Safeguards Guarantee Gender Equity? Lessons from Research on Women in early REDD+ Implementation (CIFOR)

The Role of Gender and Kinship Structure in Household Decision-Making for Agriculture and Tree Planting in Malawi (ICRAF & partners)

Tools & Resources

A Guide for Gender Mainstreaming in Agroforestry Research and Development (ICRAF)

All gender-related tools and manuals published by CIFOR are available here.

The Global Gender and Climate Alliance also has a collection of tools and resources, which you can access here.

Upcoming event

10 September 2015, Durban, South Africa. FTA organizations will partner with FAO and UN Women to host a gender panel at the XIV World Forestry Congress. For details, please click here.

Event reports

28 April – 1 May 2015, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Symposium: Gender-responsive participatory research in agricultural and natural resource management. To read a blog from this event, click here.

9 June 2015, Rome, Italy. Gender and biodiversity: Bioversity’s gender-responsive research and praxis. To read a report from this session at Bioversity’s Science Week, click here.

Call for contributions

Does gender balance improve forestry and fishery management? A new project aims to map the evidence on gender, natural resource governance and biodiversity conservation. And they’re looking for your help.