A REDD+ gender group was established in 2013, with four members from four institutions including the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), Forestry Administration (FA), Fisheries Administration (FiA) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE). This inter-institutional Gender Group has played a key role in raising awareness on gender and women’s empowerment issues relevant to REDD+ among members of the REDD+ Taskforce, Consultation Group and technical teams. The group has also played an important role in providing regular feedback to the policy deliberation processes to incorporate gender concerns and promote active participation of women in designing and implementing the National REDD+ Strategy.
The Gender Group has continued its active participation in the NRS consultation process to ensure that gender issues and needs are adequately addressed. A gender checklist was developed and utilized to ensure the activities of the REDD+ Programme and the strategy are gender consideration. Several events that included a training of trainers were conducted to strengthen capacity of the Gender Group, Technical Teams, and Consultation Group to enable them to identify gender issues that should incorporated into the NRS. As the outcome, the final version of the NRS has incorporated gender consideration in its strategic objectives. The NRS is now submitted to the Royal Government for Endorsement, so the next step will focus on the NRS action plan development. The Gender Group will continue to be involved in the action plan development to ensure that future REDD+ activities are gender responsive and continue to ensure promote and enable participation by men and women.
