The European Union (EU), in an effort to reach Sustainable Development Goal 5 in all internal and external policy areas, are also upping the ante with regards to its Gender Action Plan III, highlighting the EU’s political and operational roadmap towards a gender-equal world.
The EU is scaling up its existing re-greening efforts to address environmental challenges on the African continent. As a key EU partner, Africa is facing severe land degradation, a serious threat to the continent’s sustainable development. The call for action has become more urgent than ever and at the forefront of its plans, is gender equality, seen as the future of solving climate change challenges.
The Sahel region, (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal), is at the forefront of this challenge as desertification is expanding further south of the Sahara.
The case for Re-greening the Continent
Re-greening Africa is an example of EU-funded intervention aimed at restoring land ecosystems while supporting gender-equitable policies and practices to empower women and girls. This project contributes to the Great Green Wall initiative, seeking to reverse land degradation across one million hectares, benefitting 500,000 households in Mali, Niger, Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Rwanda.
In the first four years after its inception in 2017, the project positively affected more than 600,000 hectares of land and over 400,000 households. The initiative involves tree planting, farmer-managed natural regeneration, soil and water conservation, value chain support and policy engagement. The EU had made it clear than female inclusion – their capabilities, choices and actions as full citizens and agents of development – is essential for land restoration and beneficial to affected communities.
Re-greening Africa has incorporated interventions for reaching and engaging women by providing equal opportunities for participation, while simultaneously addressing underlying causes of gender inequality. One approach to ensure women’s social and economic empowerment is to ensure they are included in decision-making to be able to influence and make land decisions reflective of their preferences.
GTA’s benefits
The Gender Transformative Approach (GTA) has been used to design targeted interventions to engage men and women in discussions about hitherto unbalanced access to resources, workloads, participation in decision-making and perceptions of women’s roles and contributions.
GTA’s have proved useful as they support and enrich the process of dispelling gender stereotypes. These approaches equip men and women with capacities to discuss sensitive topics, set collective visions and map desired changes which are mutually beneficial, not only to them women, but the well-being of their entire households.
The strength of a GTA is attributed to simulating change scenarios, helpful in appraising people’s reactions and providing opportunity for reflection, favourable reaction and adjustments. This helps to avoid hostile situations where people feel alienated because of changes they have or have not made in the community.
The GTA has also provided a better appreciation of responsibilities of researchers and practitioners in order to be able to deliver firstly on gender-equality goals and secondly and on the need to strengthen the capacity of project staff and implementing partners. This is considered a key precondition to successfully deploying context-specific gender tools and approaches tailored to the needs and conditions of different communities.
World Vision Ghana has supported the economic empowerment of women, through Savings for Transformation (S4T), allowing them to participate meaningfully in economic and agroforestry practices. It also makes it possible for women and men to access alternative income-generating activities which reduce pressure on forests and forest products, allowing trees and shrubs to regenerate.
Women’s land ownership
Secure land tenure rights not only promote sustainable land management, improving the effectiveness of efforts to combat and adapt to climate change, but are also critical for women’s social and economic empowerment. An enabling policy and legal environment boost the scaling process for both land restoration and women’s agency. Such policy has benefitted women’s groups in Malem Hodar, Secco Keur Savely and Niakhene villages in Senegal.
Accomplishments in tree product value chains and land restoration by members of the women’s groups have elevated their social standing, allowing them to express their concerns and advocate for their land rights. The women’s group in Secco Keur Savely village now have administrative control and ownership over eight hectares of land after successfully negotiating with the village chief and local government. Such land discussions constitute a breakthrough for women’s land security and pave the way for greater social justice in land restoration efforts.
Re-greening Africa also capitalised on the control women have over their home gardens, encouraging them to integrate trees in their farms such as the versatile Baobab, Moringa and Ziziphus , with its high nutritional and economic value. Agroforestry in home gardens in the Darou Nadjigui village provides year-round vegetables and tree products for consumption and sale, thereby improving household nutrition, livelihoods, women’s financial situation and their overall status in the community.
