The project ‘Developing models for measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) for REDD+ in the Miombo socioecological system: utilising opportunities under Zambia’s UN-REDD+ quick-start programme’, known as the Nyimba Forest Project (NFP) is implemented by Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) with support from USAID/Zambia Economic Growth Program. The main focus of the project is to provide support to Zambia’s REDD+ Readiness Programme by conducting additional in-depth studies and assessments on livelihoods, forests resources and providing recommendations for incorporation into the design of the national REDD+ strategy for Zambia.

This study is part of ongoing collaboration between the University of Gothenburg and CIFOR to develop indicators or ways to measure impacts from Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) interventions in Burkina Faso. Focus will lie on different ways of analyzing impacts on time use and division of labor for natural resources. The division of labor can provide a useful measure of inequality or changing gender roles.

Despite years of ‘gender mainstreaming’ being a buzzword in the development community, the author of this study argues that we are crucially lacking gender-disaggregated statistics on participation levels in forest management. The context to the study is the implementation of REDD+ in the Congo Basin. For the program to be successful, understanding women’s and men’s needs, roles, uses and knowledge are key, as failing to include women in decision-making could potentially result in gendered impacts that are harmful to women.

Several studies have shown that women play a vital role in a household’s food and nutritional security while they, relative to men, often have less access and control over productive assets, including land, finance and extension services. Furthermore, the literature indicates that gender inequalities may lead to decreased food production, less diverse consumption patterns, decreased household income, pervasive poverty and food and nutrition insecurity.

Rural livelihoods in the global South are becoming increasingly diversified and are no longer derived exclusively from farming and land. Seasonal and circular migration of some of the members of the household has become the main livelihood strategy. Household income is sourced from multiple localities, often beyond rural boundaries.

The rapid expansion of oil palm in Indonesia, the largest oil palm exporting country globally, remains highly contested from a forestry and development perspective. On the one hand, as the cheapest edible oil, oil palm has become the primary cooking oil for millions of poor people in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Although the policy environment for addressing gender inequity has improved over the past decade, women continue to be disadvantaged by insecure access and property rights to forest, trees and land resources; by discrimination and male bias in the provision of services, including credit and technology; and by exclusion from decision-making at household, community and national levels.

While the potential of REDD+ to help or harm forest-based communities has been widely discussed among researchers and practitioners, the authors of this soon-to-be published article argue that less attention has been devoted to potential gendered implications of the program.

Hunger remains a key development problem in the twenty-first century. Ensuring food security for the world’s population is compounded by the rapid rates of climate change, the environmental, economic and social effects of which are borne unequally across the world.

Women are often portrayed as homemakers and passive victims of gendered oppression in the literature on gender, forestry and agroforestry. Earlier studies aimed at including women in development have to some extent fed into this bias, focusing largely on women’s contributions in the productive, traditionally ‘male-coded’ spheres, rather than appreciating women’s roles in the reproductive, private spheres.