| ASSESSING
WOMEN & ENVIRONMENT
(followed...) |
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VIII. Sensitization,
training and research development
The Women
s Environment and Development Organization ( WEDO) has assisted
the African Centre for Development of Kenya and reviewe its strategies
to enable it to follow up with the implementation of the recommendations
of the Beijing Programme. This organization has taken into account
the fact that the people concerned are illiterate and has embarked
on a systematic assessment of the impact of the actions undertaken
on the most vulnerable groups. The next step is to systematically
break down data by sex, particularly as regards poor people.
In Southern
Africa, the Beijing Programme of Action has been translated into
seven languages and widely disseminated to the people.
The Programme
s implementation is facing major problems of financing and training.
To date, efforts to alleviate the lack of money problem have been
in the form of voluntary contributions made by mixed groups of
young men and women in the locality. Less men than women take
part in these activities.
With regard
to training, it should be noted that local NGOs do not generally
deal with sensitive issues on which the local people would need
information and training. Training is usually given through the
network of subregional and regional organizations, particularly
on health and human settlements.
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Research
development
According
to UNESCO, Anglophone countries are working hard in their environmental
concerns to identify quantitative parameters while their Francophone
and Lusophone counterparts emphasize the environment- nature-
culture relationship. These approaches tend to be increasingly
interrelated given that quantitative data are useful for confirming
the link between population and environment. Progress has been
made in scientific research on this issue, but the results have
not been collated and are not easily accessible to local actors,
including NGOs.
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Information
networks on traditional knowledge about the ecology
The establishment
of information networks on traditional knowledge about the ecology
has been going on, including in international institutions, in
cooperation with local networks or bodies bringing together local
environment and development practitioners and technicians. These
networks use the new information technologies to foster discussion
fora. This is the case with the IK initiative on the knowledge
of native people which was launched at the Toronto Worl Conference
of June 1997, led by the World Bank.
The aim of
this initiative is to collect information from various sectors
( agriculture, health, education and others) on the techniques
used by local societies to solve various problems ( for example,
control of fertility and soil erosion) . The final result is not
a mere listing of traditional practices but a harmonization of
the practices, techniques and resources identified. The truth
is that women occupy a dominant position in these areas, including
the educational methods used to foster group dynamics.
Among the
institutions and networks participating in this initiative are
the Centre for International Research and A visory Networks, SANGONET,
the Partnership for Information and Communication Technology for
Africa network, the International Telecommunications Union ( ITU)
, ECA, the Institue for Child Rights and Development ICRD, UNDP,
WHO, and the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO)
. Centres are currently being established in some countries on
the practices of native people with the assistance of Global IK-
Network.
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Information
on women as consumers
NGOs working
in favour of consumers hardly ad ress the issue of consumption
of mass products in spite of the real or potential problem of
public health caused by lack of labels, expiry dates and disruption
of the cold and hot chain ( including of supermarkets) . Scarcity
of resources have made public services to operate in a selective
manner. The legislation of countries do not usually allow for
effective follow- up of the conclusions reached by the surveillance
mechanisms. These inadequacies cause serious problems. It is now
common for the rules originally established for the consumption
of products to be changed. In urban areas plastic wraps and packages
are not recycled. Glass containers are also reused for food products.
Some countries ( like Cote d Ivoire) have aired television ads
to discourage the use of plastic bags. The use of polyethylene
bags and foam wastes ( from industries or used mattresses or cushions)
as fuel by poor households in place of kerosene, which has become
too expensive, is very dangerous given that these substitute products
emit toxic smoke. There is an urgent need to conduct studies on
the deviation of products from their original use, for this practice
has become widespread in reaction to increased poverty among people.
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Sensitizing
the specialized agencies to gender inequalities in population
matters
Inter- agency
cooperation to integrate the gender and population problem in
environmental programmes has been given support under gender and
development programmes. This has been enhanced by the dissemination
of the results of successful experiences which have been used
to make methodological adjustments. The importance of the women-
development- environment link is acknowledged but insufficiently
developed in the United Nations agencies or the regional organizations
in Africa, which are not directly involved in solving social and
health problems. In fact, gender- disaggregated ata, which are
produced from population censuses are already being used to improve
understanding about the contribution of women to production. However,
many countries still lack gender disaggregated data on communities,
even though this is important for economics, science, technology
and planning as shown by economic surveys carried out on households.
The assistance given to development communities and village committees
for natural resources management is inadequate in spite of the
fact that they are the most active bodies in this domain. Moreover,
it is a contradiction to make women the cornerstone of natural
resources management actions without really asking questions about
their status, particularly as regards land use and allocation.
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Involvement
of women and young people in the implementation of Action 21
The Rio Conference
on environment and development developed the Action 21 programme
which identified the critical issues and the actions to be taken
with regar to the environment. The importance of environmental
protection was then acknowledged by Governments and intergovernmental
agencies. The decisions taken need to be translated into action,
the achievements disseminated and the failed programmes reviewed
in order to improve production and consumption systems.
Four areas
which need to be given particular attention are: the involvement
of women and young people in environmental protection and conservation;
the role of women in the conservation of biodiversty; the role
of women in traditional drug making and the improvement of rural
transport in order to reduce the cost of human porterage by women.
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Involvement
of women and young people in environmental protection
The life of
women is linked to the most critical aspects of environment and
development. Taking action only to reduce the damages done by
the current modes of evelopment is not all that is required. Positive
action needs to be taken to strengthen the role of women as managers
of natural resources in accordance with the recommendations of
Action 21. The actions taken in temporary or recent sites and
locations for refugees and migrants enabled women to form themselves
into groups for activities like production, provision of assistance
to weaker people, training and conducting literacy programmes.
Women often play a leading role in environmental protection in
their communities. They want to be informed and trained in order
to increase their efficiency. It is therefore important to establish
partnerships in the urban and rural areas drawing inspiration
from the actions taken prior to 1995 in Senegal, Cameroon, Kenya,
Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Madagascar.
Women are
increasingly forming themselves into associations and cooperatives
for community activities. This trend should be encouraged for
associations are dynamic instruments that enable women to influence
programmes. The concerns of these associations are usually to
improve the performance and viability of the systems established
to solve their problems ( for example livestock production, agro-
forestry, water distribution and management of health centres)
. The experts only need to be convinced about the considerable
economic and environmental advantages to be derived from ad ressing
these community problems from the gender perspective. Analysis
of the role of women in natural resources management must ad ress
the important issue of disseminating the successes achieved, in
order to increase knowledge about the methodological problems
and the possible adequacy of projects.
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Some
data on the predominance of women in natural resources management
There is no
aspect of women s activities that does not concern the environment
in one way or another as the following ata shows: African women
account for 70 per cent of the agricultural workforce; they produce
60- 80 per cent of primary food products in sub- Saharan Africa
and are involved in almost all food processing activities throughout
the continent. Women s participation in decision- making on environment
goes beyond the management of small holdings. It includes: the
improvement, conservation and selection of plant species; domestic
livestock and plant production strategies; and implementation
of alternative methods of conserving community resources. As for
the life and survival of households, women provide water supply
( in 90 per cent of cases) and energy requirements and also cater
for the ordinary health expenses. They account for 60 per cent
of the people in the production- sale chain in agricultural and
forestry production.
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Integrating
gender in natural resources planning and management
Rural women
obtain almost all their resources from their environment. The
strategies they use in plant collection and in cropping for sale
and for subsistence is increasingly being studied. In places affected
by desertification, intensive farming or high population pressure
( urbanization, nomads adopting sedentary lives, settlements for
refugees and migrants) , women plan how to re- produce resources
using their cropping and gathering methods. However, they are
given little support in their efforts to rectify the imbalances
in the ecosystems or the loss of biodiversity. Reforestation or
agro- forestry programmes which focus on the promotion of new
species or on soil rehabilitating do not allow them to develop
long- term strategies. The early warning systems currently in
use are structural models which, at most, are aimed at observing
the adaptability and resilience of the ecosystems. They do not
aim to support women, but are limited to reaffirming their role
as joint managers of the ecosystems.
Developing
the role of African women in the management of the environment
and natural resources is the core of the sustainable development
strategy. The Beijing Programme specifically recommended providing
opportunities for women, including indigenous women, to participate
in environmental decision- making at all levels, including as
managers, designers and planners, and as implementers and evaluators
of environmental projects . Yet this recommendation is difficult
to implement because of insufficiency of data broken down by sector,
a situation that makes it difficult fully to assess the role of
women as managers of natural resources. This also affects budgetary
strategies and decisions at all levels.
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Support
to traditional practitioners
Women and
the indigenous people know how to use natural resources for health
care. Traditional medicine is however neglected. The expansion
of parallel health centres, as in religious centres, show that
herbal medicine is less onerous than conventional medicine and
is a credible alternative. According to reliable sources of information,
cost of health care would be reduced by 80 per cent from 20 per
cent if herbal medicine is used. Such a step would have considerable
effect on the income of the producers and consumers of such health
services. In order to increase the use of such products at the
national and subregional levels their packaging and technology
should be improved. Village communities alone cannot promote herbal
medicine. They need to be helped to gain markets.
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Limitation
of the analysis of the traditional methods of natural resources
management
Assessment
of the role of population pressure in environmental degradation
requires considering gender relations in a given social and professional
context and involving women in the process. Environmental problems
are felt when a resource is threatened or when it becomes scarce
as a result of natural changes or human action. Consumption patterns
can deplete systems. This raises the question of why these goods
are free. If resources must be included in national accounts and
economic strategies, they should no longer be free or easily accessible.
Things cease to be free when a reference price is put on them
or when they are controlled by property rights. Regional environmental
programmes do not deal sufficiently with the problem of diversity
of legal structures and the traditional methods of management.
Even when the need to establish alternative management systems
is evident, these programmes are usually unable to understand
the existing method of management for lack of reference points.
The information that could be used to understand it exists but
is not available. Such information is held by agencies which finance
research work, for their own internal use. FAO, for example, has
a world data bank on tenure systems relating to customary and
local law.
Beyond the
undeniable importance of analysing data collected on gender, such
data could also be used to show that the production systems managed
by women are productive and contribute effectively to the wealth
of nations. They could also be used to show that the production
systems in fragile ecosystems are not immune to foreign influence.
Gender analysis is all the more important here as, in these systems,
men and women manage difficulty and scarcity in different ways
and from socially constructed standpoints.
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Women
and customary land law
Law is an
implicit social contract. To impose it when the majority group
is in a situation of structural illegality ends up discrediting
the very idea of legality. There is now a tendency to balance
property laws at the world level. But this is superficial for
many States have continued to deny women the right of access to
property. This issue is all the more worrisome as land and soil
conservation and rehabilitation are linked to security which landed
property provides. The discriminatory laws on women explain why
they are little involved in innovative forestation programmes.
The member States of the African Timber Organization is only concerned
about State property
Customary
laws govern the rights to land use which is unfavourable to women.
No coercive mechanism is established to bend customs when they
contradict official law. The measures currently being taken to
solve this problem is mainly aimed at promoting social dialogue
on these issues. They generally end up in granting medium- or
long- term concessions to women, but not the right of inheritance,
although some countries recognize girls right to inherit their
mother s property if they are married in the locality where this
property is situated.
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Promoting
social dialogue on environmental questions
By combining
their efforts to understand the interdependence between society
and environment, the human and social sciences have made it possible
for the main actors to express themselves through social engineering
. However, social dialogue needs to be reinforced in order to
spur urgent action to combat the rapid or irreversible environmental
degradation affecting the lives of women and children.
In the subregions
hardest hit and which consequently find themselves in an emergency,
regional cooperation organizations should step up their operations
to tackle trans- border problems relating inter- alia to desertification,
civil wars, natural disasters, toxic wastes, pollution caused
by improper use of chemical products, underground water, surface
water and atmospheric pollution, since it is at their level that
trans- border problems can be best resolved.
The current
situation is worsened by the fragmentation of technical and social
services programmes and methods as well as the non- sharing of
basic information on environmental problems. Therefore, tools
and methods for evaluating environmental actions should be prepared,
taking into account the gender dimension or tackling the problem
systematically. Such instruments either do not exist or are not
being developed or tested. Finally, women s economic contribution
as natural resources managers is still misunderstood.
More resources
need to be provided for research to improve understanding of this
vital contribution and stimulate its integration in the national
economy.
Furthermore,
it is important that States honour the commitments made at the
Beijing Conference and show the political will to gradually translate
the Conference s recommendations on women and environment , on
the ongoing reforms and on the acknowledged rights of women into
concrete reality by developing environmentally sensitive societies.
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IX. Gender,
poverty and environment
According
to the World Nature Union which takes part in the drafting of
conventions on environment, increasing poverty and population
growth rates make it difficult to manage environmental degradation.
This observation also applies to natural resources, environmental
balance, and changes in the size of consumption and production
units.
Many studies
have been conducted on the link between poverty and environment.
Environmental protection is usually stimulated by the poor to
meet their specific needs. By ad ressing the problem of poverty
from the gender and environment perspective and by focusing analysis
on the production systems of poor households, it is possible to
improve the quality and viability of systems of managing natural
resources and environmental programmes.
Studies conducted
during the past five years on the informal sector in general and
on groups in serious need in particular, have improved understanding
of the strategies used by economically weak groups to gain access
to health and educational services. Since the Beijing Conference,
economists have been analysing women s remunerative and non- remunerative
activities and have made progress in household surveys in order
to throw more light on the importance of the work done by women.
In order to
implement the recommendations of the Platform and the Programme
on environmental changes and to extend the structural analysis
to poverty and to environment and development, the frameworks
for analysis need to be harmonized and the basic geometric ata
coordinated. Yet, there are no up- to- date and localized data
for analysing the structural connections of these three components.
For example, the data on women heads of households in Africa,
currently being disseminated by FAO and UNIFEM, can be used to
compare countries and regions, but they only cover the period
1979- 1993.
In areas with
difficulty, more priority is given to protecting areas in rapid
degradation which have a negative impact on the local economies,
on health and on the lives of people. Priority is also given to
desertification and eforestation control programmes, the development
of human settlements following armed conflicts or natural disasters,
the management of solid and toxic wastes, and protection against
accidents resulting from improper handling or inhalation of agro
chemical products.
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X. Guidelines
and the limitations of current programmes
The results
of the application of gender analysis to population issues should
be specifically taken into account in programme planning, follow-
up and evaluation. Data used to prepare background documents are
usually produced by projects and programmes. They are used to
enrich case studies, sectoral studies and the reports of countries
or categories of partners. They also provide guidelines for economic
and environmental programmes.
The Beijing
Programme of Action recommends that measures should be taken to
enable women to have access to natural resources, and that environmental
programmes should be focused particularly on developing women
s right to property. Yet the types of programmes currently implemented
( micro- projects, agro- forestry, village water projects) do
not usually focus on such issues.
The emphasis
on micro- projects , particularly in areas hosting displaced persons
and people in abject poverty, often make it difficult to adopt
strategies for the sustainable management of natural resources.
Sedentary people generally lack financial resources for implementing
the conventions ratified by Governments, for example, the Convention
on desertification. Many States have yet to ratify the Bamako
Commitment on Environment and Sustainable Development.
The use of
renewable forms of energy is recommended as an alternative long-
term solution. However, its popularization has been limited by
inadequate communication methods.
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Combating
deforestation and developments in deforestation in Africa
The developments
in deforestation in Africa have been positive. According to 1999
estimates, the average rate of deforestation throughout the continent
ranges from 0 to 3 per cent. Data collected on 41 countries from
surveys covering the period 1990- 1995 show that 31 countries
have deforestation rates of less than 1 per cent, including five
of the seven North African countries; seven West African countries
out of 15; Five Central African countries out of seven; nine East
African countries out of 13; and five South African countries
out of 11.
The distribution
of countries by average rate of deforestation is as follows: One
North African country; five West African countries; one East African
country; and two Southern African countries. The rate of deforestation
in the dense forests of Central Africa has not been very significant.
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Reforestation
and agro- forestry projects
Reforestation
and agro- forestry are used to restore threatened balances: (
soil equilibrium, food security and recovery of slopes and deforested
areas) . While agro- forestry is not new, the innovation here
is in the way trees are farmed and constantly taken care of. An
evaluation of the major types of reforestation ( tree- planting
and agro- forestry) was done about 10 years ago in the following
11 countries: Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Senegal, Mali, Zambia,
the Niger, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Zimbabwe. This evaluation
revealed methodological errors and inadequacies which prevented
the beneficiary countries from acquiring the project or attaining
its objectives.
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Box 3
: Current limitations in the application of gender analysis
to environmental issues
| Data
collection programmes are under way, especially in
the areas of agro forestry, the conservation of post-
harvest products, cropping and fisheries, to highlight
the role of women in the management of natural resources
and to apply gender analysis to environmental issues.
Yet,
economic data collected by sector of activity has
very limited application to non- remunerative activities,
and such data on human development are not usually
gender- disaggregated. The sectoral analyses conducted
aim to show the productivity level of each worker
in order to document the inequalities in resource
allocation and control and to facilitate understanding
of the failures and successes.
What
is new here is shifting the focus of household surveys
away from men as producers and heads of households
to the differences between men and women as heads
of households and the differences between men and
women in charge of allocated plots of land for farming
or cropping. This approach has yielded encouraging
results. But in order to deepen analysis of the dispari-
ties, more action is needed to update data disaggregated
by gender, age and location in order to improve data
collection on household economics. These data operations
have been limited to their initiators and users and
are therefore not widely disseminated or coordinated.
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The purpose
of the project did not take into account the time put in by women
and various actors capable of being left out by these operations.
However, those generally involved were women. Applying gender
analysis to show differences of plant kinds has provided guidelines
for several technical assistance projects by demonstrating that
men and women have different interests. Evaluation of about 15
natural resources management projects involving village committees
in the Permanent Inter- State Committee for Drought Control in
the Sahel ( CILSS) countries also led to the development of such
guidelines. The actions taken on women s affairs are generally
limited. Women have limited influence on decision makers because
they are denied the right to run or manage property. They are
therefore unable to take decisions on how to use resources.
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Water
projects
Water projects,
such as boreholes and irrigation systems, currently being implemented
are too localized. However, they have positive results because
of the participation of women and the training they are given,
especially in Kenya, the Niger and Senegal. In the Niger, women
test the mechanisms and equipment, checking them to make sure
they are simple, fast and safe, and possibly make readjustments.
Efforts to
improve rural agricultural productivity and urban and rural population
growth have increased the need for water and, consequently, the
responsibility of woman and children to fetch water. Coherent
actions have been taken to counter habits, customs myths and laws
that are prejudicial to the interests of women in order to provide
them with access to nearby water supply systems. This has helped
to reduce the distance covered by women and children to fetch
water and has enhanced their involvement as joint managers in
the maintenance and surveillance committees on the water projects.
Many projects in which women have been involved in this way have
earned them increased confidence in the community.
Generally,
the training offered to women under these projects have helped
to strengthen consensus in the communities on the new responsibilities
of women. However, all ECA recommendations have yet to be conceptualized
in order to strengthen community consensus on the role that women
should play. A number of support projects have been set up to
solve this problem and the results have been mixed.
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Combating
pollution
Action 21,
the Dakar Platform and the Beijing Programme all recommend that
specific legal measures should be taken to protect the environment
particularly from polluting industries and to regulate the importation
of wastes. The countries participating in these conferences have
emphasized the pollute and pay policy but there is lack of information
on whether or not these laws are being effectively applied in
African countries. The same is true of laws on the management,
control, distribution, transport and storage of chemicals. Moreover,
the current laws are limited to the level of countries and are
not harmonized. It is also true that noise, which is not considered
a type of pollution in Africa, is not regulated.
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Pollution
of continental and underground waters
The problem
of river pollution is very serious in North African countries
where the quality of underground water needs to be safeguarded.
Most of the data currently available is on surface water and not
on underground water which can only be monitored by specialized
laboratories. Egypt had to request assistance from the United
States Agency for International Development ( USAID) and some
50 local and American laboratories, which assisted it in solving
the pollution problem of Lake Manzala and the Nile. Egypt then
strengthened the law on pesticides. Basic food supplies were also
analysed by a national laboratory with the assistance of FAO,
UNDP and WHO.
The International
Hydrological Programme Water Way and the Friend/ Southern Africa
and Friend/ Nile 1 , for example, stress the need to set up management
committees made up of users. Efforts should go beyond this. The
technological and industrial options need to be debated at the
national level and more and more of the population and environmental
management issues should be integrated in the programmes.
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Recycling
of domestic and industrial waste
The issue
of wastes is a very serious matter in urban areas. The environmental
problems created by wastes affect the health of people. There
has been an instance of the city refuse collectors suspending
work and associations emerging to try to solve these problems
and to abolish the use of organic fertilizers in the urban market
gardening areas. Surveys on the big cities of Africa are available,
but they do not specifically deal with the gender and environment
issue.
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XI. International
institutional support for environmental protection
The UNESCO
Man and the Biosphere programme, in cooperation with ministries
and local and international research institutions has provided
information as well as a report taking stock of the environmental
situation in African, South American and Asian countries. It put
emphasis on food resources, consumer products and technologies
used in tropical forest areas. The adoption of a multidisciplinary
approach has improved understanding of the bio- cultural interactions
taking place in the economies of forest areas and their impact
on strategies for using food resources. The innovation in this
programme is its demonstration that the cropping activities on
which the local people live should not be condemned as not having
sufficient macro- economic impact.
In fact, studies
have shown that the sale of non- woody products is more profitable
for the people. The guaranteed annual income of women selling
non- woody products such as fruits, almonds, leaves, roots honey,
fibres and wrapping leaves, larvae and edible scorpiurus, tree
backs and mushrooms range from $ US 400 to $ US 500, as against
$ US 6000 earned once in a period of eight- ten years. These extractive
activities improve the lives of the indigenous people, especially
women and their families.
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The
Central African Regional Programme on the Environment
which cooperates
with the Commission on national parks and protected areas ( CNAP)
and the World Fund for Nature, and which operates in Cameron,
the Central African Republic, Gabon and the Congo does not apply
the gender approach. The mid- term evaluation of this programme
mainly recommends that studies should be carried out on the impact
that national policies have on agricultural activities in forest
areas. But the poor technical and financial situation of the programme
is such that these studies cannot be conducted by multidisciplinary
teams as expected and will be limited to a given number of countries.
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The
Central African forest ecosystems programme
This is a
programme financed by the European Development Fund ( EDF) in
the countries concerned. The programme for the conservation of
national parks and protected areas which is implemented in this
region produces very few survey analyses that take the gender
approach into account. The regional environmental information
programme produces data banks and participates in studies on the
impact of national development policies and environmental management
policies but does not take gender issues into account.
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Contribution
of the Global Environment Facility
The Global
Environment Facility is one of the bodies established in 1990
following the Rio Conference and was specifically named in the
recommendations of the Beijing Programme. The Fund is an international
cooperation mechanism that gives grants and soft loans, different
from official development assistance, to States to enable them
to meet their additional nature conservation expenses. The activities
of this Fund ( investment, technical assistance and research support)
are aimed at improving environmental protection in the world within
the framework of existing development projects or those initiated
by the beneficiary countries. The Fund s mandate is therefore
not to deal with the root causes of biodiversity destruction,
but mainly to reduce the impact of operations considered harmful
to the environment by supporting research on sites.
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Contribution
of the World Fund for Nature and international organizations under
the aegis of the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP
The World
Fund for Nature is responsible for monitoring obligations under
the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as inventories
on conservation activities, protection of species and ecosystems,
institutional capacity building and awareness campaigns and training
on biodiversity protection.
A comparison
of the recommendations of the United Nations on biodiversity with
the new provisions of WMO reveals that market laws often dissociate
genetic resources from ecosystem conservation. Genetic resources
can be sold through bilateral contracts whereas ecosystems conservation
comes under development programmes and projects involving cooperation
with the World Nature Fund.
The cost of
biological diversity conservation was estimated at $ US 3.5 billion
per annum in 1992. Half of this cost was meant to be borne by
the international community and half by the member countries of
the Programme. Out of an estimated budget of $ US 2 billion for
the period 1994- 1997, the World Nature Fund spent $ US 315 million
in 1996. The insufficient financial allocation to the Fund made
it imperative to rationalize the ecosystems and for the various
categories of users of the environment ( farmers, country people
and tourists) and public authorities to agree to finance activities
that are in the interest of all actors.
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XII. Economic,
social and legal problems of environmental protection
Impact of foreign debt on environmental resources
The issue
of specie depletion and loss of environmental resources demands
that societies discuss options. This means that people and decision
makers need to be sensitized. The technological options of various
actors are also important. Currently, the technological choices
of Governments, especially in agriculture, are influenced by foreign
debt considerations. Since debt is usually repaid with revenues
from the export of natural resources ( petrol and other fossil
fuel, wood, minerals and products of semi- intensive cropping)
, it means intensifying deforestation and the use of chemical
fertilizer and pesticides - which are pollutants .
Also, the
problem of repaying the cost of infrastructure which accounts
for the bulk of the foreign debt is compounded by that of the
infrastructure itself whose impact on the environment comes through
people s displacement, the loss of biological iversity and related
problems. People and decision makers should therefore be made
to share views on environmental developments, especially in view
of the crucial prospects currently being raised in the continent
. Currently, about 15 countries are carrying out studies on methodology,
conducting training for local project supervisors and preparing
workshops to reproduce the conclusions of seminars aimed at preparing
strategic approaches. Studies on long- term plans organized by
the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (
IDEP) take the gender approach into account.
The need to
share information has been emphasized time without number. Surveillance
mechanisms also need to be set up to monitor the ratification
and observance of the relevant conventions. Given the scarcity
of resources, all actions taken to secure debt alleviation or
conversion should be supported.
The gender
issue should be included in environment impact studies. Environmental
programmes with monitoring mechanisms could impose gender awareness
as a condition for investment, especially in rural areas and in
places with sensitive ecosystems. Finally, the monitoring mechanisms
should bear in mind that poverty alleviation is the main priority
of national policies.
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Legal
constraints
World environmental
awareness was raised by such problems as acid rains, the ozone
layer depletion, global warming, air and water pollution, toxic
wastes, deforestation and, more recently, threats to biodiversity.
There is a world consensus that legal steps should be taken to
protect the environment, but the difficulties that this implies
should be clearly borne in mind. Environmental issues, including
those relating to biodiversity, are usually dealt with at the
institutional, regional and international levels in a world of
competing actors. It is therefore necessary to collectively raw
up policies by means of compromise, followed by agreements, after
defining the problem and its causes. Such convergence of views
become binding. Policy documents should be completed with the
objectives to be achieved, the actions to be taken, the institutions
to be established and the policy instruments to be implemented.
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Ownership
of biodiversity
Perceptions
about environmental problems change with research and national
and international legislation on the environment. According to
FAO, biodiversity has become a common heritage of humanity just
as humanity itself became the concern of legal texts. The concept
of common heritage of humanity is all the more important as new
regulations on the environment portray the State level as the
ultimate decision- making level. Each country is thus allowed
to use its own legislation on natural resources and the management
of harmful products. Article 15 of the Convention on Biodiversity
states that as countries possess sovereignty rights over their
natural resources, the authority to determine access to genetic
resources lies with Governments and in accordance with national
legislation .
According
to the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development ( OECD) , biodiversity which is considered to
be a world collective good is currently distributed unevenly,
and in the absence of property rules individual interests enter
into conflict with the collective interest and results in initiatives
which overexploit the environment leading the collectivity to
destruction. Analyses tend to attribute biodiversity degradation
to inadequate rules on ownership, particularly in areas of commercial
activity. These rules are unworkable or difficult to apply. When
local legal provisions are considere inadequate to ensure proper
and transparent management of natural resources, international
law must intervene.
In fact, although
States have sovereign rights in the management of biodiversity
in their territories, they are compelled to enter into partnership
agreements within the framework of multilateral and bilateral
cooperation to enable them to carry out this task in accordance
with the norms and conventions ratified by them. The relevant
provisions of the World Trade Organization put biodiversity under
bilateral agreements and private law. This is dangerous for in
regulating markets, States can make laws on private ownership
of genetic resources and use these laws to manage them as they
please or give them to physical or legal persons to own.
This issue
is all the more worrying as tropical forests abound in resources
used for genetic research. The countries having these resources
can be tempted to loot them and to subject intellectual property
laws to commercial considerations, to the detriment of environmental
conservation.
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Conclusions
Disaggregated
data is not available on the contribution of institutions to the
implementation of the recommendations on women and environment
for three main reasons:
( a) Firstly,
the activities of institutions concerning gender and environment
often take the form of a process, especially when communities
are involved in operations in which environment is a cross-
cutting issue;
( b) Secondly,
this inadequacy makes the subject of women and environment not
to be taken as a priority in budgetary matters. Efforts should
be made to properly link the role of women as natural resources
managers to the environmental policies and terms of reference
of elected officials. Action should be taken to effectively
combat the inequalities in land rights and in the control of
natural resources in general and non- woody resources in particular,
for women earn considerable income from this sector;
( c) Thir
ly, national environmental plans of action, which are statements
of intent, are hardly backed by budgetary provisions. Funding
for these plans mainly depends on extra- budgetary resources.
Many studies
have been carried out on the cultural bases of food choices and
on the food strategies of rural and urban dwellers, but the data
from these studies are not harmonized and are confidential. Data
on project budgets by sector are more accessible but need to be
compiled by individual funding and executing agencies. This is
the responsibility of the institutions concerned.
With regard
to institutional mechanisms, ministerial departments and associations
should be strengthened, especially those working in the areas
of women and environment, health, water resources management,
trading and handicrafts support.
Country reports
generally contain little information on environmental matters.
However, at the subregional level, SADC countries seem to be more
committed. The current assessment indicates that subregional institutions
need to give more attention to environmental matters in accordance
with the recommendations of the Dakar Platform and the Beijing
Programme. Indeed, it is not enough to set up focal points in
institutions to stimulate coordination of information dissemination
and natural resources management. The institutions concerned should
be made to share their expectations and define their respective
fields of activity, but this has yet to begin.
With regar
to the contribution of African institutions, ECA, OAU and ADB
should be strengthened structurally, professionally and sectorally
since their joint secretariat is entrusted with the implementation
of the Platform and the Programme at the continental level.
In the absence
of performance indicators to determine the progress achieved in
the implementation of the policies, programmes and projects concerning
the critical area of women and environment , it has only been
possible to do a qualitative assessment based on trends and to
identify new developments.
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Recommendations
Special
recommendation for the preparation of a statistical addenda
Statistical
addenda should be prepared and annexed to the critical area of
women and environment and the other critical areas identified
by the Beijing Programme. These addenda should reflect the assessment
made of the situation in each area by the institutions concerned.
Such ata, including those on environment, are usually controversial
and, therefore, efforts should be made to make them more relevant
and to integrate them in broader analyses. The main obstacle to
doing this is not technical, but rather is the intentions, aims
and goals pursued by the programme developers working in the women
and environment area.
Efforts have
made to obtain data broken down by gender and geographical area
on the environmental situation in each country; but the gender-
disaggregated data does not cover the subjects of poverty, monetary
resources and productivity, except data on heads of households
which have only just started to be processed. Moreover, apart
from the issue of ata broken down by gender and by geographical
area, sufficiently relevant data on the gender approach is required.
For this,
national statistical offices, development partners and statistical
training partners should create conceptual frameworks for each
sector in preparation for the planned population, housing and
agricultural censuses.
Given the
lack of up- to- date national population data and, more specifically,
ata integrating gender. , this report lists points relating to
women and environment which should be taken into account in implementing
the recommendations of the Platform and the Programme.
They are:
( a) Access
to resources; private and public decision makers;
( b) Time-
series budget of each category of actors;
( c) A food technology energy report concerning the productive
and reproductive sector;
(d ) Indigenous knowledge: dominant methods of farming ( cropping
and gathering) ;
( e) Products
of increased social and financial value;
( f) Intra- group and inter- group competition for the use of
natural resources;
( g) The tools and technologies used and the level of innovations;
( h) Various
issues concerning the consumption choice and development strategies
of people in accordance with their habitat ( for example, settlements
for nomads, slums and refugee camps) .
The fact that
the environment and natural resources management are cross- cutting
issues makes it necessary to prepare compound indicators or models
for measuring them in an effort to determine the relationship
among the various sectors. Consequently, the Food Security and
Sustainable Development ( FSSD) Division of ECA has proposed the
population- environment- development- agriculture ( PEDA) model
on three countries: Zambia, Madagascar and Burkina Faso. This
model, which is currently being developed, will cover the following
issues: population factors; food security; level of education
and urbanization with regard to human development; soil use; soil
condition as concerns land and water; and the water system component
( climatic variations, water resources, equipment and water usage)
. The breakdown of ata on each of these components allows for
the production of different scenarios by geographical area. The
World Bank s Nexus index also uses the same type of model. It
has three components, population, agriculture and environment
and covers women s participation and soil use.
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Conclusions
and recommendations of the Workshop
Participants
at the workshop deplored the lack of specific monitoring indicators
which has hampered assessment of the progress achieved in the
critical area of women and environment since the Dakar and Beijing
Conferences . The discussions were enriched by the review of the
successes reported by countries concerning their national plans
of action on environment and the establishment of national mechanisms
integrating gender issues. The workshop participants felt that
major progress had been made in the implementation of the recommendations
of the Dakar Platform on health and environment.
The workshop
made the following recommendations:
1. The national
follow- up mechanisms on women and environment should prepare
indicators as quickly as possible; they should also prepare
a specific conceptual framework for measuring the relationship
between the two cross- cutting problems of gender and environment.
2. Measures
should be taken to make States to ratify all the conventions
on environment in general, and the Convention on Desertification
and the Bamako Commitment in particular, to enable the negotiations
on funding planned actions to be conducted under a precise legal
framework.
3. Actions
aimed at eveloping indigenous knowledge, and support activities
undertaken in favour of rural women by subregional funding agencies,
should be financed from a special fund.
4. Specific
policies should be formulated to include the gender dimension
in national budget estimates and programmes.
5. The institutions
concerned should coordinate information at the regional level
by strengthening the relationships between the focal points
in the subregional institutions and the technical departments
of national ministries.
6. African
women and environment watch institutions should be established
in each subregion. These monitoring institutions should be managed
by countries with the necessary expertise and equipment, which
should be used for the development of information systems on
the environment to meet the needs of users.
7. Environment
impact studies based on precise diagnosis, and taking the gender
approach into account, should be conducted as part of environmental
projects, particularly in rural areas.
8. Given
the low literacy level of women, national, subregional and regional
institutions should strengthen their training programmes on
gender and natural resources management; develop ways of making
women and the marginalized groups to express themselves; and
enable the direct beneficiaries to access information on renewable
forms of energy and energy substitution.
9. In order
to facilitate the follow- up and coordination of activities
concerning women and development , the African Centre for Women
should plan, in close cooperation with the Commission for sustainable
development and other important actors, to establish mechanisms
to enable it to assist African women to prepare adequately for
the Rio + 10 Conference so that their views can be duly taken
into consideration.
10. The
process of identifying indicators initiated by the workshop
should be continued at the national level, particularly with
respect to natural resources and unremunerated work.
11. The
large- scale use of efficient environmental and natural resources
protection technologies should be encouraged in countries.
12. The
follow- up of the recommendations of the Dakar and Beijing Programmes,
the World Food Summit, Habitat II, the Cairo Programme of Action
on Population and Development and the Rio Conference, should
be coordinated.
Finally, participants
felt that all the actions aimed at implementing the recommendations
of the Dakar Platform and the Beijing Programme of Action would
encounter insurmountable difficulties if they did not include
poverty alleviation.
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Annex :
Guide questionnaire for the workshop discussions
The questions
below have the following objectives:
( a) To
collect supplementary information to create a new dynamism in
research and the application of environmental data in the assessment
of production and reproduction systems;
( b) To
define ways of increasing technological innovations in the priority
areas of national plans of action on environment;
( c) To
produce information on the financial resources available to
the local and subregional support mechanisms for the implementation
of gender and environment programmes.
I. Questions on support measures
1. Do your
country s policy documents on environment take gender inequalities
into account? If so, which are the documents?
2. What
are the major constraints to strengthening the institutional
cooperation mechanisms on environmental, legal, health, production,
economic and social infrastructure issues?
3. Has reading
material on the use of natural resources been produced in local
languages? If so, in which sectors?
4. What
institutions participated in the preparation of these material?
5. What
are the strengths and weaknesses of the systems of collecting
and disseminating gender- disaggregated data and what is the
impact of this on environmental projects and policies?
6. What
do you think of the outcome of these operations?
II. Questions
on the sources of basic statistical data
1. What
are the most important surveys conducted in your country or
subregion during the past five years on agricultural or industrial
production units in order to produce data broken own by age,
gender, group and area?
2. What
mechanisms are in place for data collection and dissemination?
3. Have
atabases been set up on sources of information and on local
and foreign expertise for integrating gender considerations
in the national policies and programmes for natural resources
management? If so, can you describe these databases by type
of information, software and dissemination?
4. Have
the associations and development agents prepared a convincing
case on the role of women in sustainable development?
5. Have
public debates been organized on the role of women in environmental
protection? If so: What has been the impact of these debates
with respect to taking women s views into account in making
decisions and taking actions?
7. What
has been the practical follow- up to these debates?
III. Questions on financing
At the
national level
1. Have
the bodies concerned regularly assessed government spending,
in favour of women, on anti- pollution environmental programmes?
If so, when and in which sectors have these assessments been
made?
2. Have
the bodies concerned regularly assessed the extent to which
women have been involved in projects to rehabilitate fragile
ecosystems? If so, name the institutions that conducted these
studies, the dates of the studies and the sectors studied.
3. Have
the conclusions of these studies been used by projects to
make adjustments leading to equal access of men and women
to services and training aimed at rehabilitating the fragile
ecosystems?
At the
regional level
Has ECA
and the subregional and regional organizations, in carrying
out their mandate, assisted your country in mobilizing additional
funds for implementing the recommendations of the Dakar Platform
and the Beijing Programme?
At the
international level
1. How
much has been specifically earmarked for programmes and for
identifying and disseminating best practices in collective
activities or activities undertaken by women on environmental
issues? Has this amount increased since 1995? If so, by how
much?
2. What
inter- agency and inter- institutional cooperation mechanisms
have been set up to identify and disseminate these experiences?
Technical
cooperation
1. Have
cooperation and development agencies contributed to the production
of ata, tools, documentation and databases on environment?
What has been the nature of this assistance? ( i) Financial
assistance? ( ii) Consultancy services? ( iii) Full and comprehensive?
2. How
do you integrate communities in national and regional strategies
for major environmental activities/ projects.
These
networks work on the technical problems and increasingly on
the management of several river basins and the protection
of underground water bed with the assistance of UNESCO and
UNDP.
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Information
about this publication
For this and
other publications, please visit
the ECA web site or contact
Publications
Economic Commission for Africa
P. O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel. : 251- 1- 44 31 68
Fax: 251- 1- 51 03 65
Material in
this publication may be freely quoted or reprinted. Acknowledgment
is requested, together with a copy of the publication.
Written, edited
and designed by Mrs. Solange Goma Lemba,
Emmanuel
Nwukor and Seifu Dagnachew. Photographs provided by
Eugiene Aw.
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