For Environment, Democracy and Livelihoods
Ms. Kanchan Lama, the Principal Investigator of “Economic Empowerment of Women through Forest Solutions” (WEE-FS) project (IDRC funded) at ForestAction Nepal participated as a panelist in the event on “Driving Gender Equality through Climate Action” (14th Nov2022). The event was a part of the Canadian Pavilion events held at the COP 27 in the city of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. The panel, consisting of five speakers from the globe, highlighted the importance of addressing the gaps in women’s unconditional access to natural resources which are universally maintained by women and are the sources of livelihood for the indigenous communities, primarily women. Ms. Lama shared about the lessons learned through implementation of the low carbon, forest-based enterprise development interventions in a complicated socio-economic and environmental context of a poverty-stricken country like Nepal. She stressed on the issue of systematic deprivation of women from their rights to use the natural resources for productive purposes. She called for special attention to establish women as right holders of land and other productive assets for managing effective climate resilient action on the ground. As a takeaway message from the panel, she appealed to the global leaders of climate action to establish a “women climate adaptation fund” to facilitate an exclusively committed global action to support women in their climate resilient actions.
