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Traditional male dominance in the realm of forestry limits the degree to which forest departments around the developing world are motivated and capable of initiating and implementing gender equality agendas
. The experience of one project in Nepal demonstrates a successful strategy for changing the attitudes of forestry professionals while simultaneously creating conditions under which rural women can demand respect and inclusion by building synergies at various levels, inside and outside the forest department. Key elements of this approach are provided here, based on narratives of women and men engaged with the project. Crucial to the process is a team of committed and skilled women and men who act as change agents within their communities and agencies, based on an assumption that women are key to the project?s success. Yet despite this experience and the cadre of people who are committed to its continuity and expansion, its recommendation as a best practice is possible only due to the process of its gradual institutionalization into the government structures responsible for forest development
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Traditional male dominance in the realm of forestry limits the degree to which forest departments around the developing world are motivated and capable of initiating and implementing gender equality agendas
. The experience of one project in Nepal demonstrates a successful strategy for changing the attitudes of forestry professionals while simultaneously creating conditions under which rural women can demand respect and inclusion by building synergies at various levels, inside and outside the forest department. Key elements of this approach are provided here, based on narratives of women and men engaged with the project. Crucial to the process is a team of committed and skilled women and men who act as change agents within their communities and agencies, based on an assumption that women are key to the project's success. Yet despite this experience and the cadre of people who are committed to its continuity and expansion, the initiative is endangered by a lack of its formal institutionalization within a forest department
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Forestry has traditionally been a predominantly masculine profession in most countries
. Today almost all development projects supported by international donor agencies include a gender component. Yet very few include, as an objective, changing the attitudes and behaviour of the implementing organizations so they will promote gender equality themselves. The Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP) in Nepal demonstrates a successful strategy for changing the attitudes of rural people and, more significantly, forestry professionals
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In 1990, His Majesty?s Government of Nepal and IFAD signed the loan agreement for the Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP), and implementation was undertaken in 1993
. The project objectives were twofold: (1) to raise the incomes of hill families that were living below the poverty line and (2) to contribute to improvements in ecological conditions in the hills. These objectives were to be achieved through the lease of areas of degraded forest lands to groups of poor households, which would be assisted in the regeneration of the land. This would occur through the expansion of the vegetative cover, mainly by enrichment planting of grasses and trees, and through improved management by the exercise of more control over livestock grazing and fires. With this enhanced resource base and the resulting additional fodder production, families were to increase the incomes they earned from livestock production and other income-generating activities. By 1999, the coverage of the project had increased from two to ten districts of Nepal
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Forestry departments and forestry activities around the world tend to be male preserves
. Nepal is no exception. But, as shown by a 2002 study, the IFAD-financed Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP) successfully challenged the normal way of doing things. Both men and women were active in the gender mainstreaming strategy
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Traditional male dominance in the realm of forestry limits the degree to which forest departments around the world are able to take up gender equity agendas
. The experience of one project in the hills of Nepal demonstrates a successful strategy for changing the attitudes of forestry professionals, at the same time creating conditions under which rural women can demand respect and inclusion by building synergies at various levels. This requires a focus on developing the skills of change agents within communities and agencies
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Readers will appreciate the difficulties of translating a thoroughly participatory process like that involved in training people in and making them aware of gender in development organisations and their work: how to be aware of its implications for the self? how to be aware of its implications for others? and, above all, how to integrate it into an organisation and into the field in as non-threatening manner as possible? Much of this, translated orally and in awareness-raising exercises, merges together into a holistic process that can, and often does, result in fundamental changes in the way people see themselves and their work
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This manual has been put together based on the experience gained from ICIMOD's Gender and Organisational Development programme and by partner organisations and colleagues, as well as material already published. It is both a guide and a source of resource materials for training programmes in gender and organisational change. It will be useful for all those attempting to develop programmes that seek to help organisations, particularly those involved in development, incorporate gender concerns into their own workplace and their training, extension, and research programmes
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Despite their important role in production systems of the mountains, very little data exists on the situation of mountain women and analysis of gender relations in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region
. Scanty information can be gleaned from anthropological ethnographies, but, otherwise, studies on the status of women in the countries of the region are by and large focussed on women from lowland and urban environments. What is clearly missing is a description of their situation told by mountain women themselves. To learn of this 'hidden perspective',17 female researchers from eight countries of the Hindu Kush -Himalyan region (Afghanistan, Banglades, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan) were involved in the collection of information on the status of women in mountain areas during 1996 and 1997. The issues discussed below are based on the finding of this research.
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