Without a doubt, this project has succeeded in breaking new ground through the enhancement of rural women’s status and conditions and by challenging traditional patterns of the dominance of men. And, yet, as in the case of any substantial process of social change, resistance to the empowerment of women – both women farmers and women professionals – remains and perhaps even increases through such steps. This is manifest in various ways, but patriarchal attitudes and traditional beliefs about women are the main cause. Other obstacles can be understood through the dominant cultural practices discussed in this paper.
This project has demonstrated an effective strategy – some call it a model – for achieving gender equity at the community level and bringing about dramatic change within the minds of the professionals involved with the group promoters. But the apparent gap is related to the institutionalization of the approach. This weakness has now been made very obvious by the cancellation of the contracts of the group promoters under the new phase of the project, which lacks a technical assistance grant and therefore also lacks special funds for the gender component. Though this omission alone may not appear significant, it serves to “raise the flag” about the severe consequences that can occur without sustainable, long-term policy and organizational commitments to gender mainstreaming. Without garnering the necessary understanding and support of the key men in the Government who hold the decision-making power over the project budget and implementation, there is a very real danger that the progress attained through the hard work and commitment of the gender team, group promoters, gender focal persons, project managers and others will be squandered.
Some high-level government officials question the need for a gender perspective in a project that is not designated as a women’s empowerment project.
“Our work is not for gender equity,” said one. “This is not a gender project; that is not our aim. Our objective is to fulfil project objectives.”
Another perspective was stated by another official in this way: “We honour this idea of gender, but maybe we don’t need women to implement it.”
The fact that the DOF does not have a formal institutional directive for gender mainstreaming, nor a single structure to address such a topic means the nearly all-male department remains ignorant about the benefits that could be derived from such a focus. The staff of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the DOF point to the fact that there are three women district forest officers, but are unaware that this has done little to assure any attention to gender within the forestry sector. They seem unaware as well of the great difficulties that these few women foresters face in their work environments. Isolated and without sufficient numbers to gain clout, these women are excluded from channels of communication, decisions and policy discussions where they might be able to put gender issues onto the agenda.
“They discount gender issues when I try to discuss them, then push me up front when the donors come,” according to one woman officer.
There is no one with any responsibility for gender within the DOF, though there would be some degree of flexibility for staff to work on gender issues if the organizational structure and culture would support the effort. As it now stands, the environment of the DOF does not encourage or enable female staff members to speak out or to look for opportunities to mainstream gender.
Conclusion and recommendations
Within bureaucracies that are mired in their own world views and in procedures unchallenged by those who represent ‘the other’ (women, in this case), the lack of attention to issues of gender and social change is perhaps inevitable. Within Nepal’s forest institutions, it is not possible to undertake advocacy in favour of a gender agenda within organizations where an explicit commitment to gender equity or women’s empowerment is absent. But there is a real danger that the gender initiatives and successes will lose significance in the context of competing accountabilities and imperatives of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and fall into a ‘black hole’.
In other organizations trying to achieve gender mainstreaming, gender professionals are continually on the alert to prevent the slackening of interest in gender. They monitor the organization for opportunities for internal advocacy, as well as for bureaucratic and policy-making statements that might serve to constrain the gender agenda. As organizational theorists remind us, for a new issue like gender to be taken up by an organization, the issue needs to be moulded into a shape that fits the institutional goals, culture and procedures (Kadam, 1991). This can best be done through the committed and strategic gender advocates within the organization.
Based on the experiences described in this case study and the context in which they are situated, it appears clear that, in order to prevent the ‘black hole’ from engulfing this exemplary project, there is a need for gender structures to be built into the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the DOF. This has already been indicated by the National Planning Commission. Such an initiative should build on the good will and enthusiasm that still exist among senior DOF officials, district-level staff and the group promoters. One possible scenario would involve the creation of a “gender cell” led by a women forester with gender expertise and supported by a group of men and women foresters and rangers with formal responsibilities for gender in their terms of reference (including the existing gender focal persons). If no suitable women foresters with leadership abilities are available within the DOF, existing women DOF staff could be provided with training and opportunities eventually to take up such a position to ensure continuity after the completion of the project. In the meantime, non-DOF staff could provide the leadership. The goal is to establish gender leadership within the DOF itself.
Within this cell, there must be an organizational space for advocacy by the group promoters, perhaps through a formal linkage to their formally registered NGO. This NGO needs further training and support to realize its potential contributions to the empowerment and project objectives, which should be an element of a new project. It is through this group that the cell should build linkages and accountability to its constituents: the rural women and men leasehold members of the HLFFDP. Channels of communication, both formal and informal, to other projects and programmes of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, such as the Community Forestry Programme, need to be created and used frequently.
Given the cultural constraints to gender equity posed by the local context and the gendered environment of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the DOF, project planners and all who wish to realize the goal of gender mainstreaming within the Ministry and the DOF need to build strong support mechanisms to backstop the staff and activities of this gender cell. The result can only be a sustained base for the continuity of this exemplary effort to associate gender equity with environmental conservation and poverty alleviation.
Included in this may be a role for a donor agency, whether IFAD, or another. Donors that support policies and programmes for the empowerment of women need to fund approaches that provide, on a short-term basis, special project funds for catalytic support so that government agencies that have, to date, neglected gender issues can initiate efforts to institutionalize women’s empowerment agendas within their programmes. However, the question of sustainability needs to be addressed, as many developing country governments see gender initiatives as belonging to the donors. Ways must be found for such agencies to develop a sense of ownership over such initiatives, possibly through projects that demonstrate positive impacts through women’s empowerment, as the HLFFDP does.
The 2001 supervision report of the United Nations Office for Project Services states that there is a need for strong support for activities to challenge the status quo. This represents a recognition of the political and economic aspects of the marginalized status of disadvantaged groups and an understanding that significant changes require political commitment and action. The danger of not building the requisite political support is exemplified in the recent history of the HLFFDP, whereby a locally supported empowerment agenda credited with the project’s success almost lost its legitimacy due to the neglect of high-level officials, despite heroic attempts by an IFAD staff member to salvage the positions of the project agents nine months after their termination. And, yet, the challenges of institutionalization remain before the DOF, though it has now appointed a gender focal person from within its own staff.
Much more needs to be done, but this project has provided us with an approach to achieve women’s empowerment and poverty alleviation through a process of gender mainstreaming that aims at organizational change within the agencies responsible for natural resource management, thereby moving women’s empowerment from a field level to a central level concern. Institutionalization and long-term sustainability for equitable natural resource management require nothing less.
