Presentation by Pham Thu Thuy at the Closing the gender gap in farming under climate change event on 19 March 2015 in Paris. More about the event: http://ccafs.cgiar.org/closing-gender-gap

1. Gender and women’s
participation in REDD+
national decision-making in
Vietnam
Pham Thu Thuy, Mai Hoang Yen, Moira Moeliono,
Esther Mwangi and Maria Brockhaus

2. Gender and women’s participation in REDD+
national decision-making in Vietnam

3. THINKING beyond the canopy
Why genders matter to REDD+ ?
 Gender equality rights are human rights (UNREDD 2012)
 Mainstreaming gender into REDD+ can help improve the efficiency,
efficacy and long-term sustainability of REDD+.
 Inequitable distribution of benefits and excluding women - - from
meaningful participation in decision making may not yield intended
outcomes under planned REDD+ initiatives or may further impair
efforts at poverty reduction and sustainable resource management
 not taking gender into account in policy research undermines
potential opportunities for successful policy implementation as it may
distort the understanding of human impacts on resources
management, hinder forestry planning and skew resource allocation

4. Yet.. Gender issues are not considered in national
REDD+ program policies and strategies
• “Ensuring gender equity” remains a nice slogan
• Limited clear, detailed requirements and
guidance on gender mainstreaming at national
and sub-national levels
• Current benefit sharing mechanism and FPIC
overlooked and lacks approaches to ensure that
women„s strategic needs are met.
 Current effort only stop at ensuring the certain
number of women participants
 Inadequate representation of women: 2 women
out of 15 members in national REDD+ steering
committees,
 shortage of staff trained in ways to integrate
gender into forestry/REDD+ activities
 Lack of available data on women leadership

5. THINKING beyond the canopy
Low level of women’s participation in
decision-making in REDD+
 nominal participation: being membership of
the group (REDD+ working group, women‟s
union)
 passive participation: being informed of
decisions, attending meetings and listening
in on decision-making without speaking up
 consultative participation: being asked an
opinion in specific matters without guarantee
of influencing decisions
 activity-specific participation: being asked to
(or volunteering to) undertake specific tasks
 active participation: expressing opinion,
whether or not solicited, or taking initiatives
of other sorts and
 interactive (empowering) participation:
having voice and influence in the group‟s
decisions; holding positions as office
bearers.

6. THINKING beyond the canopy
Opportunities and barriers to women’s equal
access to and full participation in leadership and
decision- making
Opportunities
• Current efforts/proposal in including
gender dimension in national
REDD+/PES fund
disbursement/monitoring protocol
• Donors‟ pressure to tackle gender
Barriers
• Lack of political will promote
women‟s leadership
• Lack of regular funding for capacity
building for women‟s development
and gender mainstreaming
• Promotion requirements and
recruitment process prefer men and
overlooks women‟s interest and role

7. THINKING beyond the canopy
Recommendations
Government
 Detailed guidance on how to implement and
mainstream gender in current land use planning,
forest land allocation and implementation of
REDD+ for local authorities, particularly at
provincial, district and commune staff
 Capacity building and awareness raising for
government staff on gender
 Ensure “process oriented” rather “tick boxes”
 Allocate regular funding and adjust recruitments
and promotion requirements
CSOs
 Promote and improve women leadership at local level
and best practice on gender mainstreaming
 Monitor implementation of gender related policies
Academia:
 More research and evidence, data on women
leadership and participation