Achieving dryland women’s

empowerment: environmental resilience and

social transformation

imperativesPresented by: John Morton

V. Nelson, J. Morton, L. Forsythe, A. Martin, and M. Hartog

Friday 16 October 2015

Women’s Empowerment for a Land Degradation Neutral World

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification COP 12

Introduction• Resilience is a key concept for the drylands: • how drylands people can recover shocks; • how longer term transformations can be achieved.

• Ecologically, resilience is a descriptive attribute of a system. In international development resilience has normative connotations. • Link to the adaptive strategies, traditional knowledge and customary

institutions of dryland communities• as increasingly recognized in policy and international development circles.

• Valuable insights (e.g. adaptive management in conditions of uncertainty, essential role of multi-stakeholder social learning). • But while environmental resilience is needed, social transformation may also

be needed

Key challenges for dryland resilience and women’s empowerment • Dryland peoples suffer marginalization, inappropriate policies,

underdevelopment and poverty. • Multiple environmental pressures, now joined by climate change• Particular discrimination against dryland women: • worse outcomes on core development indicators• despite playing an important role in managing natural resources.

• The status quo is not acceptable• Gender equality rooted in human rights is an essential development

goal and at the same time is vital to achieving environmental resilience.

Opportunities• Improving women’s access to services that respond

to environmental variability and needs for adaptation:• basic services• risk management, insurance and climate change

adaptation programming

• Improving support for women’s participation in livestock and crop production and processing, and alternative livelihoods• animal health services• research and advisory services

• Important need to address strategic interests (decision-making, labour saving technologies, household gender norms)• Improving our understanding of gender relations in

dryland societies to inform policy and programming

Gender justice and resilience

• Design and implementation of future dryland policies and programmes based on the new understanding of dryland dynamics and co-evolution of social and environmental systems• Social and environmental change should not be conflated. It is

important to strengthen customary institutions, but at the same time constrictive social norms need to be challenged. Greater understanding of the drivers of change in gender relations is needed.• There is a need for:

• improved recognition of women’s rights, knowledge and contribution;• Better representation for women in dryland decision-making;• redistribution of resources and services for more equitable outcomes.

Priority measuresPolicy

• Studies on dryland resilience and women’s empowerment

• Redistributive measures• Improved coverage and design

of services to women especially mobile peoples

• More gender-sensitive climate change adaptation & mitigation, sustainable land management & women’s economic empowerment

• Private sector sourcing through sustainable procurement

Institutional

• High quality, context-specific analysis on gender and resilience, addressing specific research gaps

• Gender-equitable climate change and rural development programming

• Women’s participation and social learning in resilience assessments

• Redesign of service delivery through participatory reviews, and further investment – addressing harmful practices and constrictive social norms.

• High-level dialogues with multiple stakeholders on climate-resilience, economic empowerment and risk management

Capacity strengthening

• Investment in capacity strengthening programmes, empowering women and other marginal groups: participatory approaches and engagement across scales.

• Experimentation and social learning in response to uncertainty

• Tackling issues of importance to dryland women, engaging men and local leaders

• Raising awareness to counter stereotypes and gender norms for greater equality

All publications are available online at:

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/environment-energy/sustainable_land_management.html

Thank you

John Morton Professor of Development Anthropology For the NRI Team

Natural Resources InstituteUniversity of GreenwichTel: +44 (0) 1634 880088E-mail: v.j.nelson@gre.ac.uk