WOCAN Workshop on Reframing Leadership for Women and Men for Gender Equality

WOCAN Workshop on Reframing Leadership for Women and Men for Gender Equality

This is a WOCAN project supported by Heifer International and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to mobilize women and men professionals, and groups and organizations representing poor rural women in Africa and South Asia, to transform agriculture and natural resource management organizations so that the roles and leadership of women as farmers, environmental managers, professionals and decision-makers are fully recognized and supported, in order to assure the equal distribution of responsibilities, rights, benefits and power for rural women to improve their lives, reduce poverty and practice sustainable development.

Specifically, the goal is to assist poor rural women emerge from poverty by a) more effectively managing their own agricultural assets, including labour, knowledge and other assets, b) gain access to agricultural and natural resource management (NRM) technologies, services, inputs and markets, and c) have more effective inputs into decision making processes of agricultural and natural resource management organizations that can affect their livelihoods.

The objectives of this project are to:

1. Promote and build capacity of women champions within agriculture and natural resource management organizations, and amongst rural women's groups, by delivering training on leadership, gender and organizational change and training of trainers;

2. Build capacities of poor rural women to generate income from agriculture and forest products through enhanced and effective engagement with markets and through the development of enabling environments in agriculture and NRM institutions;

3. Advocate at national, regional and global levels for greater benefits and decision making power for poor rural women;

4. Promote learning and communication on organizational change and women's leadership in the fields of gender and agriculture/natural resource management.

Workshop was held from the 22-27TH of June, 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. Full report is available in the Programs section, under Capacity Building.