Women and desertification

In many of the dry, agricultural areas of the world, it is traditionally women who devote time and effort to the land. They grow, process, manage and market most of the food and other natural resources that come from the earth. For a long time, women in rural areas have had direct experience with environmental degradation through their daily work. Seeing the problems close at hand has given them valuable knowledge for finding solutions.

Very often women are the poorest of the poor and lack the power and the opportunities to bring about real change. Poor women in the drylands have frequently been conditioned to accept their disadvantaged positions. They are the most affected by desertification, and yet the least empowered to effectively address this challenge. They are often excluded from participation in land conservation and development projects, from agricultural extension work and from policies that directly affect their livelihoods.

Special efforts therefore have to be undertaken to provide women with an enabling environment. To effectively address this global problem, it is of vital importance not only to provide women with technical and financial resources, but also to promote and fully recognize their role as vital dryland stakeholders.

In many countries women are beginning to gain access to land ownership and to take part in decision-making. This is raising their status and giving them a new perspective on changing their lives, society and their environment.

At the international level, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is promoting the participation of women. The convention breaks new ground by enshrining a bottom-up approach in international law. It underlines “the important role played by women” in ensuring implementation of the convention at the field level. The success in combating dryland degradation can be increased if women reach greater participation in researching, planning and decision-making at all levels of implementing the UNCCD.

Women are key to sustainable land management

Desertification has different effects on men and women. The question is no longer that of incorporating women into agricultural management. Women’s empowerment, their wanting to take an active role in processes that affect them, rests at the basis of poverty reduction in desertification-stricken rural areas.

Does it matter for land management whether the decision-maker is a man or a woman? In the 1970s, women groups assumed it did. Their premise was that women would have a special potential for fostering rural development because they worked with natural resources, like water and land, on a daily basis. Yet, rural development projects and food-for-work schemes that targeted women exclusively, only had limited success. It became clear that when countering soil degradation and rural poverty, focusing on women alone would help little if the basic structure of inequality between men and women remained un-addressed.

Desertification, however, has different effects on men and women. This is due to the fact that land degradation directly affects "household tasks" that are traditionally considered to be women’s responsibilities. In areas affected by desertification, women easily spend four hours, instead of the normal one, on collecting water, fuelwood and fodder. Studies undertaken by the FAO show that the working hours of women in some parts of Eritrea harmed by desertification exceed that of men by up to 30 hours per week.

The preamble of the UNCCD refers to the important role played by women in dryland regions. It calls upon signatories to increase awareness and facilitate the active participation of women in policy processes and initiatives relating to desertification. The issue is no longer that of only incorporating women into agricultural management. Their empowerment, their wanting to take an active role in processes that affect them, rests at the basis of poverty reduction in areas suffering from desertification.

The Convention text of the UNCCD, in particular, stresses the need to increase women’s opportunities to learn about natural resource management. Female education forms the basis. Literacy means more than just reading. Literate women are better capable to express themselves, and participate with their expertise in decision-making on land tenure.