The Gender Equality in Research Scale: A tool for monitoring and encouraging progress on gender integration in research for and in development.

This brief discusses a monitoring and learning tool – the Gender Equality in Research Scale (GEIRS) – designed to assess the level of gender integration across a CRP’s research portfolio and at different stages of the research and development cycle

Gender matters in Forest Landscape Restoration: A framework for design and evaluation

This brief provides a framework and set of recommendations for enhancing gender equality and women’s rights in and through FLR initiatives. It presents key considerations for gender-responsive FLR, drawing on lessons from the wider gender and natural resource management literature, ongoing and past restoration, and relevant initiatives to alter local land uses for global conservation and development goals

Impact of on-farm Land Restoration Practices on the Time and Agency of Women in the Drylands of Eastern Kenya

This brief describes implementation work under the ICRAF led project “Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale”. The project is an IFAD-EC funded initiative developing innovative ways to scale land restoration activities through embedding research in development. It does this by collaborating with development programs to systematically test promising restoration options across a range of contexts. In Kenya, the project is working with over 2000 farmers across Kitui, Makueni and Machakos counties to implement on-farm comparisons of various land restoration options, including different tree planting practices and the use of planting basins

Women's Land Rights in The Gambia: Socio-legal review

This socio-legal analysis provides an overview of existing land governance arrangements in The Gambia as they relate to women’s access to land and resources. It discusses two different types of land tenure interventions: title deeds and certification. These inventions vary according to different types of recognized rights-holders and the area in which rights are being formalized. Access to and control over land and other productive resources in The Gambia is shaped by complex tenure systems. Coexisting and interacting customary systems and statutory regulations are influenced by reform processes, with differentiated effects in rural and urban areas. Rights to resources are often negotiated across multiple rights-holders, overlapping tenure regimes and resource systems. Despite important progress through legislative reforms, implementation has been slow and prevailing barriers and gaps continue to influence the recognition of women’s land rights and their ability to benefit from them

Women's Land Rights in Ethiopia: Socio-legal review

This review summarizes relevant findings from the socio-legal analysis conducted in Ethiopia. It combines the review of key legal and policy documents and literature on existing barriers to the recognition of women’s land rights. The review analyzes existing tenure systems, identifies tenure interventions recognizing rights to women, as well as barriers constraining their ability to benefit from those rights. Most of the land in Ethiopia is under statutory tenure, landholding certification is the most important land tenure intervention recognizing land rights. Constitutional Reforms adopted since 1995 specify principles to protect women’s rights, including provisions to recognize and enforce their rights to land and resources through a land certification process which ensured women’s engagement. Since 1998, Ethiopia’s massive rural landholding certification process has certified over 20 million plots. Despite these advancements in gender-responsive policy, Ethiopian land tenure practices continue to be characterized by the marginalization and invisibilization of women

FTA Highlight No.15 – Advancing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion

This publication reflects on FTA’s decade-long journey to advance gender equality in forest, tree and agroforestry landscapes to glean lessons and continue building on the achievements of the Program. The discussion follows the two interconnected and mutually-reinforcing strands detailed in the FTA Gender Strategy (2013) and Revised Research Agenda and Action Plan (2020) to achieve this goal. The first strand focuses on the research itself and the partnerships and processes that allow it to translate into outcomes and impacts of various types. The second strand, which this publication tackles at the beginning, focuses on efforts to strengthen gender integration within FTA: generating the necessary capacities, mindsets, and enabling environment to integrate gender across the FTA research portfolio, processes and structures, and to generate quality gender-focused research. The publication moves from local-level changes to high-level discourses and agendas to examine the strategies that enabled change across these scales, critically reflecting on the challenges encountered along the way. Finally, priorities are considered and an agenda for future gender research is proposed, one that can contribute to the creation of equitable, inclusive and sustainable forest, tree and agroforestry landscapes

Gender and Generational Differences in Local Knowledge and Preference for Food Trees in Central Uganda and Eastern Kenya

Food trees contribute substantially to the food and nutrition security of millions of rural households in Africa. Farming communities prioritize tree and shrub species on farms based on a combination of factors, including their knowledge of potential uses the species' economic potential and a range of constraints and opportunities that each farmer faces depending on their position within the community and the household, in cultivating, harvesting and processing tree products. Gender and age are strong determinants of such constraints and opportunities as well as ecological knowledge and use of tree resources. This study contributes to the understanding of gender and generational preferences for food tree species that determine their use, and which contribute to food and nutrition security in Central Uganda and Eastern Kenya. Sixteen gender and age segregated focus group discussions were conducted to assess food tree species preferences. A total of 61 food tree species were listed −46 in Uganda (including 16 indigenous species) and 44 in Kenya (21 indigenous species). Results showed knowledge on food tree species differed by gender and age, with differences across gender lines found more prevalently in Uganda, and across generational lines in Kenya. Age-related differences in knowledge and preferences were clear with regard to indigenous species, whereby older women and men were found to have the most knowledge in both countries. Among key challenges for food tree cultivation, farming households mentioned knowledge of tree management, the lack of planting materials, especially for improved varieties, prolonged droughts and scarcity of land. Some of these constraints were gendered and generational, with women mostly mentioning lack of knowledge about planting and management as well as cultural restrictions, such as only having access to land when married; whereas younger men indicated management challenges such as pests, limited markets, as well as scarcity and limited ownership of land. Overall findings suggest that consulting user preferences for food tree species and constraints experienced by gender and age group could be important in the design of interventions which involve a diversity of food trees. Copyright © 2022 Gachuiri, Paez-Valencia, Elias, Carsan and McMullin

Enhancing women’s resource rights for improving resilience to climate change

This brief sets out to unpack these linkages, directly addressing two of the four COP 26 key goals, improving the ability to adapt and protect communities, in particular those more vulnerable to climate change and strengthen partnerships that mobilize knowledge and action to improve the recognition and realization of women rights