For Environment, Democracy and Livelihoods
After completing the 2 years of its action research journey, the project Economic Empowerment of Women through Forest Solutions has successfully carved out more than 240 rural marginalised women entrepreneurs and increased their economic, social, and technological empowerment through a series of trainings, visits, and capacity-building programs. During its implementation, they have come across policy, technological, and many other arduous legal barriers. So in order to represent the voices and stories of transformation of these entrepreneurs from the field to the table of policymakers, a one-day reflective national workshop was organized in Kathmandu. It aimed to enhance business and entrepreneurial knowledge through interaction and sharing their experiences, establish linkages between women-led production processes and the market through direct interactions with veteran entrepreneurs, and create a supportive and inclusive environment for the entrepreneurs in terms of policy and programme implementation, aiming for sustainable markets, and addressing the voice from the grassroots. As the diverse stakeholders are a crucial aspect of this national workshop, there was active engagement from diverse professional backgrounds who sparkled the discussion on different themes, intricately analysed the stories and voices of the entrepreneurs, and gave critical feedback and assurance to facilitate a supportive environment in as many aspects as possible.
The panelist discussion was centered on strategies and policies for the sustainability of microenterprises focusing on women’s engagement in the enterprise, Measures for easing registration and functioning, Major problems and issues encountered, strategies for solving the complications in the value chain of minor forest products, policy and practical gaps faced by women, and potential solutions to promote women in forest-based enterprises The issues faced by women entrepreneurs till now were: limited market, lack of skills of professional intermediaries at the local level, market expansion plans, formal product registration and certification, gender and caste discrimination, sustainability and availability of resources, maintaining quality, legitimacy of product prices, etc.
The common pathways echoed by the stakeholders were
● Accounting and expanding the use of local resources according to market potential.
● Developing strategies and implementing forest resource expansion programs,
● Market management and product diversification, for example, taking initiatives to bring Nepali paper and paper products to the national and international market,
● Producing and cultivating in community forests, private forests, and private lands for the sustainability of raw materials,
● Promoting agroforestry,
● Creating an environment of collaboration and cooperation with local government, domestic and divisional forest offices, banks and financial institutions, enterprise groups, value chain actors, community forests, and other stakeholders, and propagating the latest endeavors of knowledge and skills through various means
