Empowered women and the men behind them: a study of change within the Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project in Nepal

This study analyses the gender impact of the Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP) Nepal. The project was situated within a society where gender ideologies that privilege men are dominant and where relationships between community members and government workers are often steeply hierarchical. These conditions present serious obstacles to the encouragement of men professionals within men-dominated organizations to carry out plans to achieve the participation, much less the empowerment, of uneducated rural women. Through the initiatives of a few this change did occur, at least at some level, within the DoF and other line agencies associated with the HLFFDP in Nepal. How this occurred and the obstacles that remain in the path of the institutionalization of this innovative approach are the topics of this study.


The empirical data for this study were collected in Kathmandu and in Hetauda, Makawanpur district, over a period of two weeks, from 14 to 28 April 2002, by two women members of a team of IFAD consultants.


Based on the experiences described in this case study and the context in which they are situated, this report recommends that, in order to prevent the ‘black hole’ from engulfing this exemplary project, there is a need for gender structures to be built into the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the DOF. Such an initiative should build on the good will and enthusiasm that still exist among senior DOF officials, district-level staff and the group promoters.


Within this cell, there must be an organizational space for advocacy by the group promoters, perhaps through a formal linkage to their formally registered NGO. It is through this group that the cell should build linkages and accountability to its constituents: the rural women and men leasehold members of the HLFFDP. Given the cultural constraints to gender equity posed by the local context and the gendered environment of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the DOF, project planners and all who wish to realize the goal of gender mainstreaming within the Ministry and the DOF need to build strong support mechanisms to backstop the staff and activities of this gender cell.


Included in this may be a role for a donor agency, whether IFAD, or another. Ways must be found for such agencies to develop a sense of ownership over such initiatives, possibly through projects that demonstrate positive impacts through women’s empowerment, as the HLFFDP does.