Women's empowerment through community forestry in Chalnakhel VDC, Kathmandu District | |
| Author | Rai, Sarika |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.RD-06-10 |
| Subject(s) | Forest management--Nepal--Kathmandu Women in forestry--Nepal--Kathmandu |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Forests are one of the important sources of livelihood for rural people. The lives of rural people and women are closely linked to them. This study assessed women's empowerment through community forestry in Nepal. The study was carried out in Chalnakhel Village Development Committee (VDC) of Kathmandu district. Two Forest User Groups (FUGs) were selected for analyzing their evolution and structure, user rights and responsibilities, decision-making and benefit sharing systems, men's attitude towards women and women's empowerment based on selected criteria. Information was collected through a household survey, in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, key informants survey and observation. Despite women's involvement in community forest management activities, their decisionmaking role in the FUG activities is substantially low. The community forestry program has tried to enhance women's empowerment by involving them in different training, workshop and excursion tour. The key barriers were heavy household workload, lack of flow of information between the FUG executive committee and members, and male household members' tendency to take part in FUG organized activities including meeting. Due to male's dominance and lack of education, women still hesitated to express their opinions and suggestions during the FUG meetings. After the establishment of the community forests, male household members were supporting females' participation in meetings and other FUG organized activities. Males were also taking into consideration the suggestions given and opinions expressed by women. Women had also strengthened their self-confidence and improved social networking. The study revealed that Women FUG were more empower than Mixed FUG. Women got more exposure so that they got opportunities to build up their confidence in terms of voice raised in the village gathering, equally participate in the decision making process. Due male presence, women were always deprived from all opportunities and their bargaining power in the FUG was weaker than Women FUG. Overall, the community forestry had contributed to some extent to women's empowerment. However, the situation was far from satisfactory. Mostly, the lower caste and poor women could not get as much benefit as upper caste and relatively rich women. Men still are playing a vital role in decision-making on community forest management. The deeply rooted culture, which prohibits women from taking part in social and developmental works, was also an important factor constraining women's empowerment. The institutional improvements such as provision of education and training, improvement of information dissemination system, provision of active involvement of marginalized members and sustainable use of forest product from employment and income generation arc made to empower women to actively participate in the decision making as equal to men |
| Year | 2006 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | hapa, Gopal B. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Kyoko Kusakabe; Mokbul Morshed Ahmad |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | AIT Fellowship |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2006 |