GM & partners launch dedicated e-forum on women's empowerment

14 February, 2007

In close collaboration with SolArid and the West and Central Africa programme, the GM is launching a special initiative to empowering women in decision-making, as part of its activities to implement the UNCCD in Francophone Africa.

This initiative has it origins in a request to the GM from women delegates and NGOs from several francophone countries, in which they voiced their awareness of the need to support women’s economic and social activities in their fight against desertification.

It is also based on the GM’s mandate which calls upon the GM to invest in new approaches to resource mobilisation, in line with these affected countries’ specific needs as well as on the new financing architecture as expressed in the Monterrey Consensus and the Paris Declaration of Aid effectiveness.

This initiative aims to generate better understanding of women’s role today in natural resource management in general, and in sustainable land management in particular, with a specific focus on land tenure issues, in order to develop a GM action programme targeting improved access to land and other productive resources such as water and energy, financing, markets and trade, for women living in arid rural areas.

It is expected that this will contribute to the creation of an enabling environment for sustainable land management of arid lands in the countries participating in the initiative.

The GM intends to kick-start this initiative by launching an experimental electronic forum (e-forum) for two weeks in February with some of its long-standing partners in Francophone Africa.

Moderated discussions will centre on:

water management & access
land access & tenure
market access & access to financing
renewable & alternative energy.

with a view to:

setting up a platform for the exchange of experiences, in order to foster knowledge management on how women contribute to natural resource management and SLM
mobilizing women opinion leaders from the South and the North to raise awareness about women’s key roles in dryland management
exploring the potential for increasing investment in sustainable development activities managed by women, and thus financial flows for UNCCD implementation.

While this initiative is being piloted in Francophone Africa, it is the GM’s intention to subsequently extend its scope to other regions.

The outcomes of the e-forum will be published on this website.

For more information, please contact:

Ms Ines Chaalala, Advisor, Gender Issues
Tel +39 06 5459 2584
i.chaalala (at) ifad.org