Within the forestry sector, one of the biggest challenges for women is their limited access and control over land tenure. Many other persistent issues women in forestry face - economic inequality, policy inequality, decision making inequality and empowerment challenges- are linked back to the issue of insecure land rights. Despite some progress in Sub-Saharan Africa in reforming legal frameworks, customary law, unequal inheritance practices and lack of awareness of policies, cause the continuous marginalization of women. When a women has limited access or control over land, she often ends up working informally on land owned by a man, gets cut out of decision making processes reserved for "land owners" and receives only a fraction of the profit from products or timber produced on that land. However, there are some successful examples of community based policy formulation where better tenure policies (statutory and customary) have been realized.
In Liberia, the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) has found bottom-up, grass-roots approaches to be more effective if rural women involve themselves in the process by positioning themselves as leaders and collaborate with traditional leaders (usually men), headpersons and chiefs, to transform customary practices. The involvement of the community can lead to empowering women to lead community mapping efforts is a another way to improve land governance across a community.
Securing equal land and tenure rights for women is essential for their livelihood and empowerment, and both statutory and customary inequalities need to be addressed. Involving communities and especially rural women in policy formulation is key to improving gender equality for women in forests.
Mme Taylor Tondelli
Within the forestry sector, one of the biggest challenges for women is their limited access and control over land tenure. Many other persistent issues women in forestry face - economic inequality, policy inequality, decision making inequality and empowerment challenges- are linked back to the issue of insecure land rights. Despite some progress in Sub-Saharan Africa in reforming legal frameworks, customary law, unequal inheritance practices and lack of awareness of policies, cause the continuous marginalization of women. When a women has limited access or control over land, she often ends up working informally on land owned by a man, gets cut out of decision making processes reserved for "land owners" and receives only a fraction of the profit from products or timber produced on that land. However, there are some successful examples of community based policy formulation where better tenure policies (statutory and customary) have been realized.
In Liberia, the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) has found bottom-up, grass-roots approaches to be more effective if rural women involve themselves in the process by positioning themselves as leaders and collaborate with traditional leaders (usually men), headpersons and chiefs, to transform customary practices. The involvement of the community can lead to empowering women to lead community mapping efforts is a another way to improve land governance across a community.
Securing equal land and tenure rights for women is essential for their livelihood and empowerment, and both statutory and customary inequalities need to be addressed. Involving communities and especially rural women in policy formulation is key to improving gender equality for women in forests.