This poster was presented by Bimbika Sijapati Basnett (CIFOR) for the pre-Annual Scientific Conference meeting organized for the CGIAR research program gender research coordinators on 4 December. The annual scientific conference of the CGIAR collaborative platform for gender research took place on 5-6 December 2017 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where the Platform is hosted (by KIT Royal Tropical Institute). Read more: http://gender.cgiar.org/gender_events/annual-scientific-conference-capacity-development-workshop-cgiar-collaborative-platform-gender-research/

1. The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security
and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, ICRAF, INBAR and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors: on.cgiar.org/CGIARFundDonors.
LED BY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion
in the CGIAR Research Program on
Forests, Trees and Agroforestry
Introduction
For the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), gender inequalities present structural
barriers to the change that is needed to support sustainable and equitable development solutions.
FTA prioritizes a transformative approach to gender equality by focusing on drivers of change in tree-based and
forested landscapes, and on how these affect/are affected by men and women’s capabilities to:
i) control assets and resources,
ii) value and distribute unremunerated labor, and
iii) meaningfully participate in decision making at various levels.
The Program adopts an intersectionality lens to analyze how gender intersects with other factors of social
differentiation,toshapelivelihoodandresourcemanagementdecisions,governance,andthedistributionofbenefits
and costs from forest and tree-based systems.
FTA conducts research with and about younger generations of women and men.
FTA engages with a wide range of actors, across scales and sectors, in creating an enabling normative and policy
environment for improved gender equality, environmental, and socio-economic outcomes.
An evolving gender agenda
FTA’s gender agenda continues to evolve. We adopt a rights-based approach, emphasizing gender
equality as a rightful goal in and of itself. While win-wins between gender equality and environmental
objectives are optimal, reconciling tensions and trade-offs may at times be required.
FTA’s thematic foci on institutions and governance maintain their relevance, and its emphasis on
migration and multi-local livelihoods, tenure and large-scale land acquisitions, restoration, climate
change, market-based conservation mechanisms and value chains continues to expand, amid rapid
environmental and political economic transformations.
In its second phase, FTA will build on the capacities developed and lessons learned and will broaden
its focus to: adopt a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of gender issues, prioritize
transformative gender work, adopt mixed methods—including participatory action research—in
researchandevaluations,incorporatethelatestthinkingongenderanddevelopmentincapacity-building
efforts, create learning and knowledge-sharing platforms, broaden and deepen its partnerships, and
enhance gender integration in monitoring, evaluation and adaptive learning frameworks.
Research questions
FTA’s gender research addresses questions about the norms, institutions and power relations that represent structural barriers to gender equality in tree-based landscapes, and ways to redress these, by studying:
• The effects of different sector policies in creating constraining or enabling environments for women’s access to and control over forests and trees
• The types of institutional arrangements that promote meaningful participation of men and women from different generational groups in decisions related to forest restoration and management
• The structural causes of socially-differentiated impacts of climate change, and how to strengthen the voice, influence and entitlements of marginalized groups in adaptation and mitigation policies and interventions
• The strategies, institutional arrangements, interventions and safeguards that should be used to improve the gender responsiveness of FTA value chains and business models
• The policies, institutional arrangements and interventions that foster enabling environments for women and men from different social and generational groups to benefit from migration and multi-local livelihoods in forest
landscapes
• The extension approaches that improve the uptake and gender responsiveness of forestry and agroforestry technologies and planting material, and create opportunities for women’s empowerment and social inclusion
Key gender concepts
The concepts that underlie FTA’s gender agenda are highlighted above and include:
• Gender equality – our work is guided by a normative commitment to substantive
gender equality, which combines formal gender equality (i.e. formal opportunities
for women and men, such as those inscribed in policies) with equality of outcome
(i.e. reflected in the actual conditions of women’s and men’s lives).
• A rights-based approach – We emphasize that women’s rights and gender equality
are not only means to achieving other outcomes but important and legitimate goals
in and of themselves.
• A transformative gender research agenda – our research focuses on identifying
and transforming the structures underlying gender inequalities (gendered power
relations, norms, institutions, policies) rather than focusing only the symptoms.
• Agency – refers to the ability of individuals to make strategic life decisions and to
act upon them. Our research designs, methods, partnerships and dissemination
strategies aim to support local women and men’s abilities to exercise their agency to
redress gender inequalities.
• An intersectional approach – our research is informed by an understanding that
gender intersects with other factors of social differentiation (including generational
dimensions) to position individuals within their societies and shape their
opportunities and constraints.
Impact pathways and theory of change
FTA adopts an integrated approach that combines two main impact pathways:
1. Informing policy making at various levels to advance gender equality and rights in control over and access to forest, tree and
agroforestry resources and their benefits.
2. Enhancing women’s participation in decision making on the management of forests and agroforestry landscapes.
FTA’s gender mainstreaming efforts feed into these pathways by increasing the quality and quantity of gender-strategic and -integrated
research.
Contributions towards a CGIAR-wide gender research
framework
• Thematic:Naturalresourcemanagement,commonpropertyresources,landscape
level analyses and collective action.
• Approach: Rights-based and transformative approach, intersectional and
multi-scale analyses, alignment with global environment and development
commitments.
• Process: Moving from knowledge to impact through partnerships with a range of
actors, working across scales, geographies, sectors, and disciplines. Integration
across participating CGIAR centers through the Gender Integration Team.
Photo by Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Theory of change about gender integration in FTA FTA’s gender research impact pathway