How can REDD+ be implemented without intensifying existing inequalities for women? Given that REDD+ is an international climate initiative with required social, environmental safeguards, how can advocates and community members use international law to advance women’s tenure rights in REDD+?
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) was designed to use forests to address climate change, however it can have significant impacts on land tenure rights, particularly for women. Although women are central actors in forest conservation and sustainable forest management, they are rarely recognized as key stakeholders. They also face discrimination in resource management processes largely due to unclear, insecure, and unequal tenure rights. While there are international laws and institutional policies relevant to REDD+ that protect rights, women’s rights have not been systematically incorporated into REDD+. In addition, there are a number of socio-political barriers to advancing women’s inclusion in REDD+. In fact, there is great risk that REDD+ could exacerbate existing inequalities for women.
With support from the Rights and Resources Initiative, we explored how relevant internationally-recognized rights can reinforce the work of women’s rights advocates at the national level. Our analysis suggests that international law provides opportunities for advancing women’s tenure rights in REDD+, both to guarantee respect for rights that are already recognized in customary, local, and national systems, as well as to strengthen rights where those governance systems are weak.
Using our ForestDefender webtool, which presents human rights relevant to REDD+ in an interactive, user-friendly database, we identified five key internationally-recognized human rights categories relevant to women’s tenure rights. As women’s tenure rights are not specifically addressed in international law, the categories we chose draw on broader rights that can support women’s tenure rights, including:
1) tenure-related rights;
2) women’s and/or gender-specific rights;
3) procedural access rights;
4) free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC); and
5) the right to a healthy environment.
In addition to providing a summary of each category of rights in the context of international human rights law, we also suggest ways in which advocates can use these rights to strengthen respect for women’s rights in REDD+ policies and frameworks – specifically the UNFCCC and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
If you are interested in the specifics of how international human rights law offers an additional framework to advance women’s tenure rights in REDD+, read the complete discussion paper. Otherwise, here is the shorter policy briefing, which includes a chart of key provisions of international agreements relevant to women’s tenure rights. We hope these new tools can be added to your advocacy toolkit to ensure that as REDD+ moves beyond readiness towards implementation, women’s tenure rights are advanced and respected in REDD+ and beyond.
Note: While there are opportunities to advance women’s tenure rights in REDD+, our analysis is not intended as an endorsement of REDD+ as a solution to climate change or tenure issues.
Originally posted on June 18, 2015.