E3’s Offices of Land and Urban (E3/LU), Forestry and Biodiversity (E3/FAB), and Global Climate Change (E3/GCC) are pleased to announce a new jointly managed global integrated resource management activity that provides cross-cutting programming support to Missions.
The Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) activity provides on-demand support services and technical assistance for USAID Missions, Bureaus and Independent Offices across a wide array of environmental and natural resource management issues. INRM covers the full range of environmental issues USAID works on and is managed jointly by the USAID E3 Offices of Land and Urban, Forestry and Biodiversity, and Global Climate Change. The activity is designed to help Operating Units achieve higher impact environment programming and to support the uptake of principles and approaches outlined in the Agency’s Environmental and Natural Resource Management (ENRM) Framework.
The Integrated Natural Resource Management activity will support Missions with integrated programming across the program cycle and across sectors, such as food security and biodiversity, health and climate change, land use and environmental protection. INRM’s overarching cross-cutting principles consider climate risks and the inclusion of women, girls, and other marginalized populations. Technical services include:
Strategic planning based on timely analysis and best available evidence;
Project and activity design and adaptive management;
Testing and learning from new approaches for integrated environmental programming;
Monitoring, evaluation, and learning of multi-sectoral programs; and
Communications and knowledge management.
For more information about how to access INRM’s technical services, please download an info sheet about the new Mission-support mechanism here: INRM Factsheet.
Photo: A zebra grazes within the South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia. For many local communities, wildlife tourism provides for livelihoods and a further need to properly manage natural resources. Source: Rita Singer for USAID
Bupe Banda was the Zambia Community Resource Board Association’s (ZCRBA) first employee when it was created with USAID support in 2016. With a background in environmental education, she also once interned with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife in Zambia and saw firsthand the challenges of allocating conservation-targeted resources to rural communities living within game management areas and national parks.
In Zambia, half of all safari hunting fees in game management areas (GMA) are shared with the community where the hunt takes place. The funds are then overseen by the local Community Resources Board (CRB) and used to support education, health, and rural development initiatives. Hunting fees also pay the salaries of community scouts who patrol the GMAs for poaching and encourage sustainable utilization of wildlife, forests, and fisheries.
Late last year, when a large share of 2018/19 hunting fees worth more than 19 million Zambian kwacha (equivalent to US$2 million at the time) were still unpaid by the government, Bupe and her colleagues went to the halls of power to demand answers. ZCRBA convened a handful of chiefs—the customary leaders of these lands—to meet with the Minister of Tourism and make it clear that if the fees were not paid, they would no longer allow hunting in their chiefdoms.
“We face a real challenge to move money from the government accounts to community resource boards. The CRBs need a collective voice, a strong and legitimate voice that speaks for the community,” Bupe explains.
The outstanding fees were finally paid to CRBs in February 2020. This outcome is what Bupe calls “advocacy with development.”
ZCRBA is just the voice these community organizations need. The association acts as an umbrella for 76 CRBs, as well as Zambia’s emerging community forest groups and fisheries groups. For these communities with CRBs, wildlife tourism revenue is their biggest earner, so the incentives to properly manage natural resources are high. Having Bupe and ZCRBA as advocates brings peace of mind to hundreds of families who rely on wildlife for livelihoods.
Quality of Leadership
Bupe, who is now the National Administrator of the association, and her colleague Isaac Banda, the ZCRBA National Coordinator and a member of the Mkhanya CRB, have since participated in leadership training with the Africa Conservation Leadership Network. The workshops are funded by USAID in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, and have helped Bupe to recognize her skills and overcome her fear of public speaking.
Focused leadership training has also allowed her to learn practical planning tools like meeting management, fundraising, and team building. “Now, I feel like I represent the association wherever I go.”
The leadership trainings form part of USAID’s capacity-building efforts for civil society conservation groups that lack the organizational capacity and confidence to achieve effective advocacy, influence, and community development. Stronger leadership skills are expected to help close the gap created by the isolation and general lack of infrastructure facing CRBs when it comes to scaling their impact in conservation. Although these community groups are often led by passionate individuals, they are missing a critical mass.
USAID is providing CRBs with additional tools and skills to achieve a more cohesive network of wildlife advocates. In 2020, with USAID support, ZCRBA is rolling out smart phones to CRB leaders as well as organizational and planning tools. Phone connectivity will allow the association to better serve the needs of the CRBs, while improving their chances for coordinated action and fundraising.
Finally, USAID is trying to challenge and transform gender norms within the CRBs by offering gender leadership training to increase women’s participation. When not completely absent, women’s representation in CRBs leadership is very low. Of the 76 CRBs in Zambia, 72 are led by men, and the few women who participate experience challenges in the male-dominated structures.
Women leaders like Bupe are rare in Zambia’s conservation sector; however by working with individuals and institutions at a national level, USAID is paving the pathway to ensure there will be more Bupes in the next generation of leaders.
Photo: Bupe Banda serves as the National Administrator for the Zambia Community Resource Board Association.
In Zambia, rural communities rarely have the funds and skills to effectively manage wildlife resources on their own. Community Resources Boards (CRBs) have long-represented communities within the wildlife sector, but have largely had isolated voices and limited ability to advocate for themselves with government or private sector stakeholders in the tourism industry. The Zambia CRB Association (ZCRBA) aims to unify these isolated community-led resource management groups to advocate for funds and support from the government. Here, the ZCRBA’s National Administrator, Bupe Banda, explains how USAID support is strengthening their capacity to lead and mediate between communities, government, and the private sector.
The Zambia Community Resources Board Association represents 76 CRBs across Zambia. As a unifying organization, how does the association help these community organizations?
CRBs have many challenges. One of the principle problems is obtaining their fair share of revenue from the government. For this, they need a strong, collective voice that can help guarantee their rights and benefit from the natural resources they are managing
What is the relationship between the CRBs and the government?
When trophy hunting and safari operators use the lands and resources of the communities, 50% of the revenue is returned to the communities, and the other 50% goes to the government. The challenge is that the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and other government entities have been erratically dispersing the money. In 2020, the association successfully campaigned for the release of outstanding funds due to communities and has begun lobbying for better policies that empower communities.
What do CRBs do with this money?
In game management areas, for example, these funds represent employment and a source of money for community development. In the eyes of the community, the CRB is much more respected than many of the government agencies, because CRBs implement livelihoods projects from which every household stands to benefit. This is why the association’s role as mediator is important. When CRBs talk, we make sure the government hears it; and when the government talks, we make sure the CRBs hear it.
How has the role of advocacy resulted in benefits for the CRBs?
To date our crowning achievement has been lobbying for the release of 19.8 million Zambian kwacha to CRBs earlier this year. The funds were the overdue fees from the 2018 and 2019 hunting seasons. We held a series of meetings with government ministers and mobilized chiefs from the communities. This led the Minister of Finance to commit to making the payments. This is advocacy with development.
How is USAID-funded leadership training helping to build the capacity of the association?
USAID has supported the ZCRBA leadership team to participate in a year-long regional training cohort called the African Conservation Leadership Network. This leadership training program is really helpful for an emerging leader like myself and an eye-opener of what it takes to build teams, be a leader, and what is involved in sometimes being a follower.
What new tools have you acquired?
We learned practical tools and techniques, models of planning, how to manage meetings, focus our work plan and relate to counterparts. We have refocused our strategy, communications, board governance, and fundraising. The fundraising aspect is very important. Currently we only receive USAID funding and subscription fees from our CRB constituents, but we want to expand our funding from other donors. The training was an opportunity to learn more about building networks for the sake of fundraising, how important our communications strategy is. These are reminders that we all need.
After the leadership training, how did you feel?
I feel more confident and more organized. I never thought I was the leader I am; I only thought I was somewhere within the vehicle, but I don’t know if I was driving or being driven. The CRB association is new, and we have a small staff and a large workload. For us to achieve and maintain the confidence of the donors, we need to deliver.
In what other ways has USAID helped get the association off the ground?
The USAID partnership has strengthened our ability to advocate for community rights with local and national leadership, and carry out high-level meetings where we can actually influence policy. The support from USAID has also helped us coordinate regional meetings with CRBs, create procurement manuals, and distribute low-cost mobile phones for every CRB. For many CRBs, these phones represent the only way they can access the Internet. As communications tools, they also help us conduct monthly reporting, and coordinate with members in a timely manner.
How is the USAID Partnership helping the association broaden the inclusion of women?
We know that women are not well represented in the natural resource management sector, and due to this, we have a special focus on ensuring that women are represented in employment opportunities, like community scouts, as well within CRB leadership. We want to make sure that the emerging female leaders within these communities have the support and role models they need to thrive.
When Tajikistan achieved independence in 1991, local governments managed up to 35 percent of agricultural land. Leasing state land was complicated, inefficient, and time-consuming. Farmers had unequal access to land and information — it was often unclear why some farmers received land but not others. As a result, leasing land failed to raise income for local governments.
Recognizing the importance of these lands in a small, mountainous country where agricultural land makes up only 7 percent of land area, the Feed the Future Tajikistan Land Market Development Activity (LMDA) supported local officials to improve land management of the Special Land Fund (SLF) and the Land Reserve Fund. LMDA supported land lease auctions, allowing the transferability of land-use rights in Jomi and Yovon districts. Auctions provide a transparent way to lease land and also raise local government income. Safar Rahimzoda, the first deputy chair of Jomi District, who helps manage the district’s infrastructure, collaborated with LMDA to auction land based on government priorities.
The first auction in Jomi, held in October 2019 in Yakkatut Jamoat, received 21 applications. Participants had equal access to bid on agricultural land from the SLF. The estimated minimum lease payment for one hectare of irrigated arable land was 1,110 TJS ($114) per hectare, with a maximum price of 1,600 TJS ($165). Winners secured their land-use rights by signing three-year leases with the local government.
Noting these “impressive results,” Mr. Rahimzoda approached the project about a second auction in December 2019. The open process sparked interest and increased applicants in the second auction by 85 percent. Mr. Rahimzoda noted that double the land was up for sale, and bidding was highly competitive — maximum prices jumped 54 percent!
Analysis revealed that demand for land is high, even for temporary use. Auctions strengthened local government, improved district revenue, and raised farmers’ incomes. The two auctions leased 51 hectares from the SLF and secured 189,948 TJS ($19,602) for three-year leases in Jomi. This will fund district improvements to land, roads, and infrastructure.
In Khatlon Province, Tajikistan, more female farmers are learning of their land rights and seek to exercise and defend those rights. Through the Feed the Future Tajikistan Land Market Development Activity, tashabbuskors — community activists — and Legal Aid Center (LAC) lawyers support female farmers in the province in 12 target districts.
In Dusti District, Nuri Vakhsh jamoat, Bargigul Allayorova, a 58-year-old female farmer, had worked for years on the lands of the midsized Khatlon dehkan farm. Then, in 2008, management decided to divide up the land between shareholders. The farm legally ceased to exist, and former owners created a new farm, Fayzali. Ms. Allayorova’s land share was absorbed by the new farm against her will. Despite her appeals to various offices, she received no help.
However, Ms. Allayorova never gave up. In October 2019, she met with Aysifat Norbekova, a local tashabbuskor, and informed her of the situation.
The tashabbuskor advised Ms. Allayorova to contact the local LAC office and take the matter to court. Ms. Allayorova was inspired to continue her fight — now with a tashabbuskor and a LAC attorney on her side.
She met her attorney, Abdurahim Kalandarzoda, who helped her collect required documents and file a claim with the province’s Economic Court to separate her land share from the Fayzali dehkan farm.
Ms. Allayorova won — after review, the court divided her land share of 1.46 hectares from Fayzali, overturning the restructuring of the former Khatlon dehkan farm.
With the favorable decision, Ms. Allayorova applied to the chair of Dusti District, Nurmakhmad Faizzoda, to create her own dehkan farm, which she named Farhod. Since its founding in December 2019, Farhod farm has become her family’s main source of income and dramatically improved prospects for all 20 members of her family.
New initiative aims to demonstrate the business case for supporting a gender-inclusive supply chain while increasing sustainable food production
PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) announced a new five-year, $20 million partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative, supporting the global food and beverage leader’s efforts to empower women in agriculture and help build a more sustainable food system. The goal of the project is to drive inclusivity across the food and beverage industry by demonstrating that actively engaging women as critical drivers of PepsiCo’s sustainable sourcing strategy leads to better business results.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, if women farmers had the same access to resources as their male counterparts, their food production would increase by up to 30% and help eliminate hunger for 150 million people. However, the lack of land rights, limited access to information, technology, and financing, and expectations of domestic work based on prevailing gender norms are barriers to achieving this reality.
To help address these challenges, USAID and PepsiCo will each invest an initial $5 million to jumpstart the program, which will support women-owned small- and medium-enterprises and women-led PepsiCo suppliers to improve the resiliency of rural farming communities in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
“At USAID, we believe that investing in women is key to advancing a country along its journey to self-reliance. The full economic inclusion of half the world’s population ultimately will contribute to greater peace and prosperity for all. However, we cannot do this important work without collaborating with the private sector. Through the W-GDP Fund, our partnership with PepsiCo will promote economic opportunities and leadership roles for women farmers,” said USAID Acting Administrator John Barsa.
This partnership builds on the lessons learned from PepsiCo and USAID’s recent project in West Bengal, which helps women lease land, as well as provides trainings on a broad range of topics including record keeping and pest control, the best irrigation and crop rotation techniques for their region, and the role of women in agriculture and the cultural norms that hold them back. Ultimately, it is expected that the training program in West Bengal will reach more than 300,000 women through direct and community engagement.
“We are thrilled to again partner with USAID to further create more opportunities for women to take on leadership roles in their communities,” said Christine Daugherty, VP, Global Sustainable Agriculture & Responsible Sourcing, PepsiCo. “We expect that by engaging women as critical partners, on-farm productivity will increase, compliance with our sustainability standards will improve, supply chain performance will be strengthened, and we will contribute to the long-term resilience of farming communities and PepsiCo’s success. After all, we know that women make up nearly half of the agricultural workforce and by investing in women, we can have a greater impact.”
PepsiCo will integrate findings from this partnership into its Sustainable Farming Program, advancing positive social, environmental and economic outcomes among the farmers from which the company directly sources crops. Both organizations hope this project will demonstrate the business case for a gender-inclusive supply chain and serve as a catalyst for change as other food and beverage companies look for new ways to increase productivity.
About PepsiCo
PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $67 billion in net revenue in 2019, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. PepsiCo’s product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including 23 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.
Guiding PepsiCo is our vision to Be the Global Leader in Convenient Foods and Beverages by Winning with Purpose. “Winning with Purpose” reflects our ambition to win sustainably in the marketplace and embed purpose into all aspects of the business. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com.
About the W-GDP Initiative
In February 2019, the White House established the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative, the first whole-of-government approach to women’s economic empowerment. W-GDP seeks to reach 50 million women in the developing world by 2025 by focusing on three pillars – Women Prospering in the Workforce, Women Succeeding as Entrepreneurs and Women Enabled in the Economy. W-GDP leverages a new innovative fund, scaling private-public partnerships which address the three pillars. In its first year alone, W-GDP programs reached 12 million women across the globe.
About USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID’s work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience.
PepsiCo Cautionary Statement
Statements in this release regarding PepsiCo that are “forward-looking statements” are based on currently available information, operating plans and projections about future events and trends. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties. For information on certain factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from expectations, please see PepsiCo’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. PepsiCo undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
By: Mary Hobbs, Director for the Agriculture, Environment, and Business Office, USAID/Mozambique
Mozambican farmer Lucia Maurício farms about 10 hectares (25 acres) of land to feed her five growing children.
Portucel Executive Director Paulo Silva manages more than 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of eucalyptus farms in Mozambique to feed a growing multi-million-dollar global supply chain hungry for paper pulp.
They have more in common than you might think.
Both require the same foundation to achieve their goals: clear and documented land rights.
Just as clear and documented land rights allow farmers to invest in their land to improve their harvests and their lives, they allow investors and corporations to more easily identify farmers and communities with surplus land, and to negotiate to access or lease the land they need to keep their company running.
Land rights are an underappreciated precondition across the agriculture spectrum – from the largest agriculture companies to subsistence farmers, their foundation for success is documented and secure land tenure.
This may sound like a simple requirement, but in Mozambique and many other sub-Saharan African countries, that foundation had not yet been laid. According to the World Bank, only 10% of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa is documented. In Mozambique, where Lucia farms and Paulo works, the FAO says only about 20% of land is documented. Those figures haven’t changed much in decades – trapping farmers like Lucia in poverty and providing hurdles to investment for investors like Paulo.
Most farmers in Lucia’s village of Enhumua farmed without titles or deeds to the land they rely on. They farmed land passed down to them or bought on a handshake. The contours and boundaries of each parcel were rarely noted on paper.
And when land tenure is unclear or undocumented, both farmers and businesses suffer.
This was the case for Lucia. Previously she could not capitalize on the most fertile section of her land because of conflicting claims. The parcel was by the river, well irrigated, and blessed with rich, productive soil. But her neighbors also claimed the land. And this threat influenced the way she farmed. Instead of trying to maximize profits, she and her husband Calisto tried to minimize their risks. Despite the land’s potential, she planted only corn on the parcel. She feared that if she planted other vegetables, which are much more profitable, her neighbors would take the investment as an irresistible invitation and seize some or all of her crop along with her land.
This type of conflict over land has long been common, and it intensified in 2010, when the government granted approximately 173,000 hectares of land in Zambézia province (which includes Lucia’s village of Enhumua) to Portucel-Mozambique to establish large-scale eucalyptus farms. Zambézia is the second most populous province in Mozambique. So across Zambézia, villages like Enhumua do not have a lot of vacant and unused land.
Portucel staff immediately recognized the challenges of operating a business in such an uncertain environment when they began negotiating with villagers to lease land. In Namalapa village, not far from Enhumua, Joao Ernesto Prego received an unwanted surprise when Portucel claimed rights to 3.5 hectares of his land. Joao’s nephew had signed over rights in exchange for a promise of lifetime employment with Portucel. Portucel had a signed document from the nephew, and Joao found he had little recourse.
As the company’s eucalyptus farms sprouted across the horizon, similar stories – born of a tangled web of unclear and undocumented land tenure – multiplied. Eventually, as with many companies, Portucel ceased all land procurement negotiations and put future investments on hold while they worked out how to responsibly negotiate with and invest in communities where land tenure is undocumented and unclear. Land disputes can very easily escalate, creating tensions in a community that make it unsafe for families and businesses alike.
A bicyclist walks through Portucel’s eucalyptus plantation.
The company’s hopes for the future, along with those of Lucia and other farmers, soared when USAID and DFID-funded programs to document smallholders’ land rights came to the region. The programs trained farmers like Lucia to document land boundaries with GPS technology.
Farmers walk the boundaries of their land, GPS in hand and witnesses in tow, to map their properties. Each farmer is provided with a certificate signed by local leaders that includes a satellite map of the farm, GPS coordinates, the farmers’ names, and the names of community leaders and witnesses.
The certificates provide smallholders like Lucia and Calisto with their first documentation of their land rights. This added security has been transformative for Lucia, her community and Portucel. When farmers like Lucia have secure rights to property, they can negotiate with businesses to loan or lease their land, or arrange an out-grower contract with a company like Portucel and enter the global marketplace.
With clearly documented land boundaries, Portucel can finally identify landowners with surplus land and negotiate to access or lease it. They can also identify vacant parcels and pursue options for leasing that land from the government or communities.
Portucel hopes these changes will enable it to reduce its investment risk and increase the sustainability of its business. As Paulo Silva says, “Now, in a vast area of our holdings, we all know the right locations of the plots of people living there, creating better conditions for dialogue between the company, communities and individuals. This allows us to better plan for the future.”
Martins Gabriel Paiva putting a new roof on his home.
Lucia certainly wasted no time in taking advantage of her newfound confidence in her land rights. She is planting a vegetable garden on her prized parcel and, with the proceeds from that harvest, will gain a measure of self-reliance heretofore unimaginable. She and her husband expect the vegetable plot will quadruple their income. Such a jump in their earnings would finally allow them to put a much-needed zinc roof on their home, support their children’s education, and improve the productivity of their other fields with investments like fertilizer or better-quality seeds.
“We can farm as we please,” says Lucia with a smile. “Life is good now.”
Martins Gabriel Paiva, a village chief often called upon to settle land disputes, has also noted the change brought by better documentation of land rights. “In the past there was constant conflict over land,” he says. “Now there is harmony.”
Martins notes that Lucia’s story is being replicated across the district. “The land thieves now know that every parcel has an owner,” he says. “We are now kinder to each other. We have a community group that has the people’s trust and it is working on building a community fishpond.”
Economically empowered women reinvest in their families and communities, spur economic growth, and ultimately help communities in our partner countries progress on their Journeys to Self-Reliance.
The W-GDP Fund at USAID also brings new resources. Today, USAID Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick joined Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump in announcing $122 million in W-GDP progress and partnerships aimed at fulfilling the W-GDP’s goal of reaching 50 million women by 2025.
Out of these new activities, I would like to highlight five.
The W-GDP Fund at USAID and PepsiCo are partnering on work in West Bengal, India, where together we are strengthening women’s access to land and technical agronomy training to become PepsiCo farmers. / Jen Peterson, Tetra Tech
Partnership with PepsiCo
The W-GDP Fund at USAID and PepsiCo are investing $5 million each toward the launch of a five-year public-private partnership that will develop the business case for investments in women’s economic empowerment within PepsiCo’s business model and encourage other food and beverage companies to promote similar investments.
The partnership kicked off in June 2019 in West Bengal State, in the Republic of India, where PepsiCo and W-GDP have strengthened women’s access to land and agriculture technical training. This partnership also provides training in personal empowerment and leadership skills and builds the capacity of local PepsiCo staff to include and work with women more directly in the company’s supply-chain.
The preliminary evidence generated from this pilot makes a powerful case for investment in women’s economic empowerment — both in advancing PepsiCo’s business goals and in creating tangible economic opportunities for women within the company. Women supported through this initiative are producing high-quality crops that will yield potatoes for PepsiCo’s Lay’s brand chips, which generates income for women to invest in their families and farms, and to secure their own futures.
W-GDP Grand Challenge: Women Enabled in the Economy
The W-GDP Fund at USAID and PepsiCo are partnering to create tangible economic opportunities for women with PepsiCo, including their ability to produce high-quality crops, which allows women to further invest in their families and farms, and secure their own future. / Jen Peterson, Tetra Tech
Grand Challenges mobilize governments, companies, and foundations to solve development problems and source solutions, test ideas, and scale what works. Through these programs, USAID and public and private partners inspire and incentivize new voices from around the world to solve development problems. The first round of a new, dynamic, W-GDP Grand Challenge. Managed by USAID, will crowdsource innovative solutions that economically empower women and increase women’s access to commercial finance, which barriers in laws, regulations, policies, and practices often restrict.
With an initial investment of $5 million for the first year, the W-GDP Grand Challenge will convene host governments, the private sector, civil-society organizations, and women themselves to create action plans to improve the enabling environment and remove or reduce cultural barriers that preclude women from fully participating in economies. USAID will catalyze the private sector to fuel the W-GDP Grand Challenge to continue to break barriers in policies, laws, regulations, and practices to help women access capital and credit — and ultimately participate in the economy as equal economic actors.
W-GDP’s Invest in Women Portfolio
The W-GDP Fund at USAID forges partnerships with American companies that understand their business interests are best served when women are empowered around the world. In this second year of the W-GDP Fund, USAID and PepsiCo are investing an initial $5 million each to support a five-year partnership. / Jen Peterson, Tetra Tech
Access to better jobs, financial services, and global supply-chains can empower women economically in the developing world and break the cycle of poverty in their local communities.
The W-GDP Fund at USAID is launching a new $23 million Invest in Women Portfolio by working with leading partners such as CARE, Deloitte, and Kiva to overcome obstacles to grow women-owned businesses. The W-GDP Invest in Women Portfolio funds activities that mobilize and encourage private-sector investment in women through innovative, market-based approaches. Through this portfolio, W-GDP’s blended-finance approach provides a risk cushion for other investors and mobilizes significant additional private-sector capital investment.
Other New Programs
The $7.4 million W-GDP Interagency Fund will enable our U.S. Government partners to promote women’s economic empowerment through programs that highlight their unique strengths and expertise. For example, a new partnership with the U.S. Department of State will bring together women’s coalitions from Central Asia to identify, prioritize, and pursue needed reforms to unlock women’s economic opportunity through the Department’s flagship W-GDP Women Empowered — Realizing Inclusive and Sustainable Economies (WE RISE) program, which works with the Center for International Private Enterprise, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, and Search for Common Ground.
When women have stronger property rights, they tend to have higher incomes and are more empowered to make decisions in their households and communities. The USAID W-GDP Fund’s $7 million investment in Women’s Land Rights will support reforms to national policies and customary practices through local capacity-building in the Republics of Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Zambia, and India.
When USAID joined the White House, the State Department, and other implementing Federal Departments and Agencies in commemorating the first anniversary of W-GDP, the Initiative had already improved the lives of 12 million women.
USAID will continue to build on these successes, launch and scale up innovative programs, and embrace opportunities to advance women’s economic empowerment in 2020 and beyond.
Do you have great photos of climate and development? Do you want to promote your work on Climatelinks? Now is your chance!
Submit your photos so we can share your work or your organization’s work with our global community of climate practitioners.
Our 2020 Photo Contest theme is Healthy Forests for a Healthy Future. We’re looking to capture nature-based solutions such as active reforestation, plantations, agroforestry, and natural regeneration. We would also like photos that tell the story of how individuals and communities interact with the forests they depend on, and how local leaders are conserving, managing, and restoring them.
You may submit up to five images complying with the contest rules and requirements. Entries will be judged on relevance, composition, originality, and technical quality. Winners will be selected overall through an evaluation panel composed of USAID staff and the Climatelinks team.
The contest runs until July 31, 2020. Winning photos will be announced in Fall 2020, subsequently featured in Climatelinks communications, highlighted on the website’s topic pages, and showcased in Climatelinks photo gallery. The winning photos will also be featured in the Office of Global Climate Change’s official 2021 calendar, which will be distributed to contest winners.
By Patricia Malasha (Zambia Gender Advisor, Integrated Land and Resource Governance Program (ILRG)), Jennifer Duncan (Global Gender Advisor, ILRG) and Matt Sommerville (Chief of Party, ILRG)
Zambia is home to some of Africa’s most spectacular landscapes, premier national parks, and Africa’s Big Five game animals: lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and Cape buffalos. Every year, nearly one million visitors make wildlife tourism a major contributor to Zambia’s economy and one of the few sources of formal employment for communities in rural areas. Yet one of Zambia’s most important resources is often conspicuously absent from management decisions over and benefits from the wildlife sector: women.
For decades, USAID has been working with partners to protect Zambia’s threatened wildlife and enhance rural livelihoods. Recently, USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance Program assessed the gender dimensions of community-based wildlife interventions in Zambia, particularly focusing on experiences in Eastern and Muchinga Provinces.[1]
Meeting women in the Chifunda fishing camp
On the third morning of our trip to Muchinga Province we came upon a group of locals deep in the bush, fishing on the Luangwa River in a game management area. The party of mostly women and girls had set up a crude camp site on the riverbank where tree branches could not protect them from the previous night’s rains. They had pots of small dried fish, which they caught by wading out into the river with thatched fish traps. Occupational hazards include hippos and crocodiles in the water and hyenas and elephants walking through their camp in the darkness of night.
They told us they come for several days at a time and once they fill their bags with fish to sell at the market, they trek 15 kilometers back to their village. Some of the women are from families that own small tracts of land for farming and come in the off-season; others have no land to farm. For all, the income from fishing ends up being important to their families’ welfare.
Earlier that morning we had seen men fishing from small boats in a wider section of the river, where they can catch much bigger fish using efficient metal fish traps. Cultural norms do not permit the women to go out on the water in boats and fish. Their place, they are told, is on the shore.
The women in the Chifunda fish camp are among the many in Zambia whose lives intersect at multiple points with wildlife resources. The survival of their families depends on these fisheries, and they are partly responsible for the stewardship of this critical resource. In the bush, they face the threats of human-animal wildlife conflict, and hike long distances carrying fishing baskets and pots. Their knowledge of these resources is both unique and valuable. Since they are have been left out of wildlife management, the perspective of women and mothers is largely absent from conservation dialogues.
Why are women are missing from wildlife management?
It is highly probable that none of the Chifunda women will ever have a role in decision-making or employment related to Zambia’s wildlife and fisheries sector on the Community Resource Board. Due to pervasive gender norms and practices that keep women out of these roles, women are left, yet again, watching from the shore.
Zambia has partially decentralized management of its wildlife sector to Community Resource Boards, known as CRBs, as well as to fisheries and forest management groups. CRBs operate across vast chiefdoms where government and customary institutional responsibilities overlap. But there are no guidelines on the role of women in these groups, and only strong customary gender norms that sideline women in resource management and benefits. In fact, CRBs are purposefully working to serve men’s interests, and there is a striking lack of transparency and accountability in resource use.
Women’s representation in some CRBs and Community Forest Management Groups is very low, and completely absent in others. The Chifunda CRB has no women on its 10-member board, and neighboring Chikwa CRB has three women members. Of the 76 CRBs in Zambia, 72 are led by men, and the few women who participate experience challenges in the male-dominated structures.
Hiring practices and biases create barriers to women working in wildlife
Women do not have the same employment opportunities as men in the wildlife sector. The inequitable training criteria for scout selection exclude even well qualified women candidates. New hires are usually arranged through informal channels, based on social connections and not through standard and transparent procedures. Education qualifications—like a grade 12 education—English fluency, and competitive physical trials, such as timed runs with packs end up excluding many women. No policy exists to encourage either the state or the CRBs to employ women in the wildlife sector.
In fact, few women are ever employed: only three out of 38 game scouts working for Chikwa CRB are women. Chifunda CRB, which patrols resources over 200,000 hectares chiefdom, has hired only three women among its 57 scouts. When employed, women scouts are hurt disproportionately by common practices of non-payment (for up to a year). Women employed in poacher sting operations appear to face significant gender-based violence risks.
What can women bring to the table?
Effective wildlife management at the community level entails much more than chasing down poachers—something women are able to do just as well as men. It is largely about improving education and awareness of community members—both men and women—raising awareness about harmful and illegal practices, and encouraging involvement in alternative livelihoods. The USAID-assessment makes clear that both women and men interact with wildlife, depend on it for subsistence and cash income, and bear responsibility for the sustainable use of wildlife resources. It is optimal that teams include women and men to reach every segment of society. Employing women is not only fair, it is smart.
Tackling gender biases in the wildlife sector will require a multi-pronged approach
Based on the assessment findings, USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance Program continues to work with civil society partners on practical ways to improve women’s participation and empowerment within the natural resource management sector. This year, the program is supporting the training of the first cadre of female scouts and rolling out gender sensitive election guidelines and training for CRBs in partnership with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and Zambia’s National Community Resource Board Association. These are just the first steps of many to give women proper representation in the decisions made over community resources.
With a focus on women’s economic empowerment, USAID is working with community-based natural resources management organizations in Zambia to support women’s leadership within the wildlife sector through participation quotas and leadership support from community level to national policy with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife. Activities focus on creating opportunities for fair employment and constructive dialogue on gender norms within these rural communities. Experiences are being shared across Zambia’s wildlife and forestry sectors creating novel learning and scaling opportunities for women’s empowerment.
