Key messages
- Although women’s rights and participation may be granted by statute, they are not automatically exercised or implemented due to cultural norms, lack of capacities or inadequate budgets.
- In the absence of effective implementation of gender equitable statutes, negotiation and facilitation by trusted intermediaries can begin to strengthen women’s rights and participation, and lower transaction costs of collective action.
- Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM), which aims to level the playing field, resolve conflict, foster collaboration and negotiation, and build skills and capacities, is a viable way to promote gender equity, even among communities that are strongly patriarchal and characterized by cultural practices that exclude women from tree planting and land ownership.
- Men are important actors for strengthening women’s rights and overall empowerment. Mixed groups of men and women can be viable pathways for women’s empowerment as opposed to women’s only groups.
- ACM facilitation has opened up opportunities to improve local livelihoods and demonstrated gains to sustainable forest and land management, especially on-farm tree planting and the restoration of degraded forests.
