Gender and forestry and agroforestry
From 2017 to 2019, women comprised around 23 percent of all people employed in forest-related work based on a sample of 69 countries. The share of women in the forest workforce is lower than that of men, particularly in forestry, logging and manufacture of wood and wood products. Yet the real number of women engaged in forest-product value chains may be significantly underestimated in current statistics because women have more informal jobs in the sector. (FAO, 2023)
Over 25 percent of the global population, including one billion women, depend on forest resources for their livelihoods. Forests provide energy for heating and cooking for 2.6 billion people, and it is estimated that 2.4 billion people use wood-based energy for cooking (FAO and UNEP, 2020).
Forests supply important resources such as fiber, fuel, food, fodder, medicines, shelter and other raw materials and provide livelihoods for millions of people, including many of the poorest men and women.
Less women than men are involved in the forest workforce, mainly in informal and unregulated jobs, such as processing and trade of forest products. Women dominate small-scale, non-traditional forest-product trading and are the main collectors of fuelwood and edible plants, while men own and manage larger businesses. Yet women face many more challenges, such as limited land rights, restricted resource control, poor access to services and heavy time constraints, which impact their capacity to engage in more profitable enterprises. Worldwide, women’s contributions are largely invisible despite the increasing roles of rural and indigenous women in forestry value chains, particularly in marketing non-wood forest products.
Some women living in forest communities have highly specialized knowledge of forest species diversity, resource management, restoration practices, product transformation and conservation, which are directly linked to food security and health. Women can play a critical role in ensuring the future sustainability of forests and forestry, and their equal participation in decision-making is essential to harness the innovative perspectives and solutions they can bring.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) promotes and implements gender-responsive initiatives to support women’s participation in forest management, and produces and disseminates sex-disaggregated data to provide evidence to support policymakers in their efforts to review and strengthen laws and legal frameworks in the forestry sector to be more gender responsive. Tthrough the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, FAO assisted countries in evaluating forest tenure-related policies, laws, institutions and administration and in formulating actions to strengthen governance and tenure mechanisms that consider the gender dimensions. FAO also supports the development of gender-sensitive frameworks to assess the extent and effectiveness of community-based forestry globally.
Key areas of focus:
Valuing women’s role and local knowledge in forest communities and adopting gender-transformative approaches aimed at changing power dynamics and providing equal access to resources, services and decent employment.
Supporting women’s entrepreneurship and participation in forest governance and decision-making by ensuring secure and recognized rights within community and collective forest tenure systems, equipping women with knowledge and skills needed to run enterprises and supporting their leadership role in community enterprises and producer organizations.
Enhancing women’s capacity in climate change mitigation through inclusive processes that enable traditionally excluded stakeholders, notably women from Indigenous Populations and local communities, to participate in and benefit from policies and measures that governments design, enact and implement for sustainable development. FAO also adopts gender-responsive approaches to climate action, supporting full integration of a gender perspective to reduce barriers to benefit-sharing from climate finance and forest-based mitigation strategies and initiatives, including the carbon market.
FAO addresses the needs, priorities, knowledge and capacities of women and men, ensuring that both are actively involved in decisions over sustainable management of wildlife and can equally access emerging forest-based value chains and bioeconomy opportunities, ensuring that women can engage not only as gatherers and processors, but also as innovators and business leaders.
FAO supports the adoption of gender-responsive National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMSs), which enable countries to obtain up-to-date, reliable, transparent and accessible information about the state of their forests, while capturing the perspectives and knowledge of both women and men whose livelihoods depend on forests.
Women and Indigenous Peoples in forestry play crucial roles as holders of traditional knowledge and custodians of biodiversity.
Forestry and agroforestry systems are not gender neutral. Compared to men, women have less access to and control over forest resources and services and fewer economic and decent job opportunities are available to them.
Women foresters have specialized knowledge of forests, in terms of species diversity, management and use of resources, as well as conservation and restoration practices linked directly to household food consumption and health, which are critical during food crises.
Inadequate access to resources and services restricts women's ability to engage in more profitable forest-based enterprises and reduces their productivity.
Women play a crucial role in community-based subsistence activities and productive initiatives, throughout the forest-product value chains. Yet they continue to receive insufficient recognition and support from policymakers and service providers. The persistent lack of sex‐disaggregated data further compounds this problem.
Ensure that programme formulators and implementers identify and address gender issues by analyzing gender relations, power dynamics and intersecting forms of discrimination (ethnicity, culture, class, age and disability), analyzing and using sex-disaggregated data to design gender-responsive activities, and integrating gender-related outputs and indicators into project logframes and monitoring and evaluation systems.
Invest in women’s socioeconomic empowerment and participation in forestry by designing and implementing gender-responsive projects that support income-generating activities and entrepreneurship; strengthening the capacity of institutions and extension services to deliver gender-responsive services; and adopting gender-transformative approaches that enhance women’s leadership and participation in forest governance and restoration, while fostering more equitable gender relations at all levels.
Strengthen the skills and knowledge of both women and men by delivering targeted training on gender equality and women’s empowerment in forestry for community members, practitioners, and government actors; planning tailored capacity development initiatives for women that reflect their specific needs and literacy levels; and producing accessible knowledge products that highlight women’s roles, needs and contributions in the forest sector.
Enhance the capacities of national institutions to mainstream gender issues in forest governance and policies by supporting inclusive policy-making processes, through awareness raising and technical guidance, building the skills of gender focal points and forestry officials through targeted training, enhancing women’s participation in decision-making and policy development, and producing accessible and evidence-based communication materials to guide gender-responsive strategies in the forestry sector.
Strengthen the collection, analysis and use of sex-disaggregated data, by conducting gender analyses in forestry to inform the design, implementation and monitoring of gender-responsive policies, programmes and strategies. This includes identifying gender inequalities in land tenure, workloads, benefit-sharing and access to resources and services; using gender-sensitive methodologies for data collection; and widely disseminating the findings to inform decision-making and institutional practices.
Since 2008, FAO has been supporting the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) to mainstream gender issues in major initiatives such as Building the global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector and the Global Transformation of Forests for People and Climate: a focus on West Africa.
The Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme, a European Union funded initiative of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), has developed a series of innovative social safeguards tools to ensure the implementation of a Community Rights-Based Approach (CRBA) and the design of participatory and gender-responsive strategies and plans (and budgets), including the collection of sex-disaggregated data, use of gender-sensitive indicators, and documentation and dissemination of gender-responsive good practices.
The FAO Forest and Farm Facility initiative is providing direct support to forest and farm producer organizations, women’s groups and female-led enterprises. Through its unique approach, women have enhanced their capacities in entrepreneurship and business skills, and female and male smallholder farmers are able to better advocate for their needs. Rural women have also improved their access to services and are better recognized for their crucial contributions to sustainable and inclusive economic development, food sovereignty and climate resilience.
Key Resources
Publications
The State of the World’s Forests 2024
01/07/2024
This edition of The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) provides highlights on the state of the world’s forests and explores the transformative power...
Publications
Advancing women's leadership in dryland regions through the three Rs: rights, representation and resources
01/10/2024
This WeCaN Nurturing Community of Knowledge Practice for Women policy brief focuses on advancing women's leadership in dryland regions through the three...
Publications
Monitoring gender equality and social inclusion in forest and landscape restoration programs
01/09/2023
This brochure is a tool to guide monitoring the GESI strategy in forest and landscape restoration projects and programmes, relevant for both national...
Publications
The State of the World’s Forests 2022
01/05/2022
Against the backdrop of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and the pledge of 140 countries to eliminate forest loss by 2030 and...
Publications
Mountain women of the world – Challenges, resilience and collective power
01/12/2022
This publication highlights the stories and voices of mountain women, with a focus on rural areas and mountain tourism, and outlines a path forward...
Publications
FAO’s work on gender in forestry
23/04/2022
This brochure shows how the different initiatives, programmes and projects of the FAO Forestry Division mainstream gender into their implementing activities...
Publications
SWM gender approach - Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme
01/11/2021
This brochure explains the SWM Programme’s gender approach in a simple and visual way, highlighting six key steps to follow to ensure gender equality...