The importance of women in the sustainability of mountain areas
Every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8 March.
The theme for International Women’s Day on 2022 (IWD 2022) is, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, recognising the contribution of women and girls, who are leading the charge on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and response, to build a more sustainable future for all.
This coincides with the fact that the United Nations General Assembly has designated 2022 as the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development. In addition, the Mountain Partnership Secretariat at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will dedicate the next International Mountain Day, on 11 December 2022, to the theme of Women move mountains. This year the focus is on the key role that women play in environmental protection and social and economic development in mountain areas.
In line with all this, MOVING (Mountain Valorisation through Interconnectedness and Green growth) is a Horizon 2020 project (2020-2024) that aims to build capacities and co-develop policy frameworks across Europe for the establishment of new or improved Value Chains (VCs), contributing to resilience and sustainability of mountain areas, valorising local assets, and delivering private and public goods.
For MOVING, gender equality is a key element in its research and innovation activities. The project aims to ensure and promote gender equality in different aspects related to research and management. Gender and age dimensions are key components of the human and social capital of mountain areas, these are therefore used as main parameters in the vulnerability assessment of the 23 VCs of the Reference Regions.
Young people and women are considered drivers of change in the mountain framework, specific actions have been defined to guarantee their active engagement in the co-design of potential measures and to enhance their role in the mountain regions. The research questions for the 23 case studies, and for cross-case comparisons, will address specifically the issues of barriers faced by young people and women in the access to markets and resources.
Gender has also been taken into account on the constitution of the MOVING Community of Practice (CoP). The MOVING CoP is an European-wide Science-Society-Policy interface built upon:
- 23 regional Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) established in the 23 Reference Regions
- 1 European-level Multi-Actor Platform (EU MAP)
- External actors
The CoP has set itself the target that at least 25% of the members of the CoP will be women. As of today, putting together the number of members of the regional MAPs, MOVING has 524 stakeholders of which 69% are men and 31% are women. As regards the EU MAP, there are a total of 44 members, of which 55% are women and 45% are men.
The project will keep working on the identification and involvement of women in all its activities.
To know more about the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development 2022 click here.