Re-centring women in sustainable forest management and development in Africa

Women are the primary consumers of forest products in developing countries – particularly woodfuel, food, natural medicines, and water. But they continue to be side-lined in forest management, despite decades of efforts to mainstream their involvement.

In Africa, activities along the forestry value chain tend to be differentiated along gender lines, with distinct roles for men and women in these operations. They also tend to have different interests in forest and tree goods and services, with women mainly concerned about the supply of food and energy for their households, and commercial interests primarily driving men. Hunting and fishing are typically men's domains, while women tend to collect edible forest plants, fruits, and medicines. They often have substantial knowledge on identifying and preparing nutritious forest foods to enhance the nutrition and health of their households.

One reason for this labour distribution is that commercial forest products such as timber and charcoal require physically taxing equipment such as machetes, axes, and saws, which are commonly regarded as part of the male domain. In addition, forested areas are often considered to be more unsafe for women than for men. Consequently, women are often pushed to shorten their time spent in the forest, which limits their options to those categories of forest products that can be quickly harvested and transported for processing at home, such as fuelwood, forest foods, medicine, resins and dyes. Nevertheless, women's income from these activities adds significantly to their households’ purchasing power.

Because of what they gain from forest ecosystems, women across the continent play a key role in managing forests and forest products. They have traditional knowledge of forest rehabilitation activities, managing forestry products, and improved forest governance, including executing management plans.

However, the development process in Africa largely marginalized women and deprived them of control over resources and authority within the household, without lightening the heavy burden of their ‘traditional duties’. The last century was marked by a remarkable, gradual shift in how women were perceived within development policy, from the stature of victims and passive objects to that of independent agents. Despite this, women’s involvement is often characterized by unequal power relations and, a lack of effective models to accommodate women and integrate their views collectively, inequitable benefit sharing, and non-inclusive integration toward forest resource use and management.

Meanwhile, climate change and deforestation have increased the workload of many rural women, while destructive logging practices and other ecosystem-degrading interventions have continued unabated, resulting in significant biological and socio-economic risks, and contributing to the continued decline in the native forest cover of the continent.

Where are women in forest management decision-making processes?

Decentralizing natural resource management, to enhance equity and efficiency in benefit-sharing and decision-making by local communities, is becoming popular in many African countries. It takes a range of forms, including community forest management (CFM), village forest committees (VFCs), and participatory forest management (PFM), among others ­– with a shared goal of promoting co-management of forest resources with central and local government institutions.

Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the holistic utilization and management of forests and forest lands to meet current and future societal needs without compromising their regeneration, productivity, and functioning. Many state governments are progressively recognizing the role forest resources play in ensuring environmental stability while directly contributing to the socioeconomic development of their respective countries. Nonetheless, their effective engagement with local communities needs to improve, as significant barriers remain such as rules of entry, ownership, labour division, social norms, perceptions, rules of practice, personal endowments, institutional outcomes, and other organizational cultures.

Key among these barriers are the gendered perceptions that marginalize women from the outset and limits their potential to engage in and promote SFM. This raises concerns for gender and social equity, as key stakeholder groups with specific ecological knowledge, skills, and interests are not being adequately included.

“Even with a social lens, it is possible to overlook the diverse roles of women and men in forestry, and the bearing of gender on resource access, tenure security, and control over benefits,” said Priscilla Wainaina, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). “If gender analytical considerations are placed front and centre from the start, this emphasizes the need to recognize the preferences, knowledge and use preferences of both men and women, as their choices shape effective engagement pathways.”

Association formation is a case in point. For local communities to legally enter into co-management arrangements, they need to form an association demonstrating their interest in managing a given forest area. But most institutional constellations across the continent suffer from the traditionally gendered nature of their governance, where men are given superior roles in decision-making and benefit-sharing: women currently have very low representation in formal forest user groups in Africa – while disproportionately bearing the costs of tree and forest management.

This affects the success of forest management goals. On average, women in rural Africa rely on forests for half of their income. As such, they require secure access and use rights to these resources, and inclusion in SFM project implementation. Neglecting their role in forest decision-making can risk project outcomes, as women’s specific livelihood needs and preferences are often overlooked.

“Women’s participation is crucial for the success of community forests and agroforestry in farmlands,” said Kennedy Muthee, a research associate at CIFOR ICRAF. “They are central in implementing adaptation measures, supporting livelihoods, decreasing deforestation, and developing and implementing new forest conservation initiatives, such as REDD+, which have implications for climate change and natural resources.”

Women bring distinctive interests and values to forest management. But there is a need for clearer understanding of how they engage in forest management practices in Africa. There is also a need to explore a range of contextualized pathways that promote women's engagement in SFM, due to African social and institutional diversity. Notably, improving the communication and information structures in different engagement models will be key to enabling women’s participation in decision-making processes across the continent.

CITATION: Duguma LA, Nzyoka J, Obwocha E, Minang P, Wainaina P and Muthee K (2022) The forgotten half? Women in the forest management and development discourse in Africa: A review. Front. For. Glob. Change 5:948618.