African Women Unite for Community Forest Management

I was absolutely delighted last week to stumble across the recently formed African Women's Network for Community Forest Management (REFACOF Réseau des Femmes Africaines pour la Gestion Communautaire des Forêts). According to Cécile  Ndjebet, (President) the network, which consists of members from 14 countries across Central and Western Africa, aims to "reverse gender inequalities in forest governance and legal frameworks through a variety of context-driven approaches, including advocacy and lobbying campaigns, promotional  communication, and dissemination of key publications and written works."

The network was born out of the African Women's Declaration (Yaoundé 2009: International Conference on Forest Tenure, Governance and Enterprise) which "illustrates the significant role that women play in forest management and in the broader scope of socioeconomic development in Africa, as well as the main challenges African women face throughout the continent in forest and land management and expectations for future action." 

They have just held their second meeting, a Regional Workshop on Gender and Land and Forest Tenure in Africa (8th -15th October 2012), and I am excited to hear the results of it. You can download the interview with the President, Cécile Ndjebet here .

This is of particular interest to me as I have been reading up for some time on the environmental degradation of the Congo Basin (Mongabay: Deforestation in the Congo Rainforest) and the gross inequalities faced by women in Central Africa. The Congo has been labelled the "worst place on earth" to live if you are a woman because of the use of rape as a misogynistic warfare method (The worst places in the world for women: Congo). The REFACOF gives me hope because it has provided a forum for the women of Central Africa to be represented and for their rights to land tenure, equality and dignity to be heard. And maybe through this platform some action for sustainable environmental management will be achieved because the key actors are actually engaged in the process.