No. 7, August 2016
Guatemala
Guatemala makes
gender a priority for
REDD+
Since 2014, IUCN and partners have been
focused on working with a wide range of
local and national stakeholders in Guatemala
to support the design of a gender roadmap
for REDD+, which aims to incorporate
gender considerations as early as possible
in the design of the country’s national
REDD+ strategy.
Difficult to start the conversation on gender
considerations for REDD+
In Guatemala, it has been an on-going challenge to get gender
considerations—among the many other dimensions of REDD+—included
in the development of the country’s REDD+ strategy. This was even more
the case in 2015, when Guatemala’s legislative elections pulled focus away
from climate change and REDD+ efforts. In the same year, authorities in the
environmental sector changed several times, which led to some periods
in which REDD+ processes were slowed or postponed, while waiting for
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the political situation to stabilise. With overall climate change and REDD+ processes stalled, it
remained difficult to bring attention to the specific dimension of gender equality for REDD+.
Ensuring gender
is included in
Guatemala’s REDD+
strategy design
IUCN’s REDD+ work in Guatemala
has focused on supporting several
policy initiatives at the national
level, and stakeholder outreach
at the local level (including in
Guatemala’s Lachuá Ecoregion
project site) to advance gender
considerations in the initial design
of Guatemala’s REDD+ strategy.
Advancing these considerations
in the early stages of strategy
design was seen as the best way
to ensure gender equality was not
treated as an afterthought—or
altogether overlooked—once the
strategy was in place.
National and local
Including gender considerations in REDD+ decisions supports
REDD+ efforts
livelihoods strategies.
begin to incorporate
gender considerations
Photo: FEDECOVERA
With the support of IUCN and partners, Guatemala’s Ministry of Environment and Natural
Resources (MARN), as well as its Forest Service have re-analysed and updated their gender
policies, and the country’s National Protected Areas Council (CONAP) has designed its first
gender strategy. These initial steps - laid the foundation for a comprehensive gender analysis
of Guatemala’s existing policies and legal frameworks, and helped to develop a roadmap for
including gender considerations in its REDD+ strategy. As the lead organisation for building
REDD+ in the country, MARN’s projected resources for gender equality in REDD+ send a good
signal that they have taken over the process.
At the community level, IUCN and partners facilitated workshops with women leaders of
indigenous and community organisations. The first workshop focused on gathering information
from participants about their relationship with the forest. The second workshop delved deeper
into the topics of forest management, climate change and conservation, and explored how
participants envisioned linking REDD+ strategy design to these issues. A third workshop sought
to validate the structure and content of a draft roadmap for including gender considerations in
the design of REDD+. IUCN also supported a workshop for technical staff of institutions and
organisations involved in the REDD+ process to define indicators for the proposed gender
roadmap, using the inputs from women gathered from the three previous workshops.
In Guatemala’s Lachuá Ecoregion, a workshop in early 2015 helped raise awareness about
gender considerations for REDD+, by exploring how various family members participate in, and
benefit from, forest-related activities.
New knowledge
IUCN’s initiatives were successful in
advancing gender considerations for
REDD+ by engaging and connecting
key actors at the national and
local levels. This involved making
sure that national institutions (i.e.
MARN, CONAP, Forest Service)
were effectively communicating
with each other, as well as with
stakeholders at the local level.
This wasn’t always easy. It took
a long time to cultivate these
collaborations, as stakeholders were
sometimes resistant to working
with other groups that had different
interests and approaches to gender
and REDD+. Bringing in IUCN’s
Global Gender Office to facilitate
these challenges proved effective in
kickstarting this work.
To fully integrate gender into climate,
REDD+ and economic development
strategies, IUCN and partners
identified the following as priority
activities for future work:
●● building capacity and gender
awareness for technical staff of
institutions and organisations
involved in REDD+, including
staff of Fundalachua (a
community forestry organization)
in the Lachuá pilot site;
Building capacity for gender awareness is an important
part of equitible REDD+ benefit sharing. Photo: IUCN
●● building capacity on climate change, REDD+ and gender for communities in REDD+ priority
areas; and
●● Finalising a roadmap to incorporate gender considerations into the country’s national
REDD+ strategy; have the roadmap validated by stakeholders and endorsed by authorities;
and implement the roadmap during 2016 and 2017.
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Further reading
●● IUCN (2015). ‘Making gender equality a priority in REDD+ countries’. Gland, Switzerland:
IUCN http://www.iucn.org/content/making-gender-equality-priority-redd-countries
●● The REDD Desk: http://theredddesk.org/countries/guatemala#gender-equality
IUCN and REDD+
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) can improve lives,
protect forests and biodiversity, and mitigate climate change. Forests serve as natural
storage for carbon, and deforestation is the second leading cause of carbon emissions
that contribute to climate change. Furthermore, more than one billion people depend on
forests for their livelihoods, and tropical primary forests are particularly high in terrestrial
biodiversity.
IUCN’s REDD+ work focuses on the integration of rights-based approaches as the
foundation for the design and deployment of landscape, sub-national and national climate
change mitigation and forest management strategies. A pro-poor orientation delivers
tangible environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits to the poor. In this regard,
IUCN works with partners and REDD+ stakeholders in tropical countries to ensure that by
2020, national climate change mitigation policies and initiatives have incorporated and are
implementing the tenets of right-based approaches and pro-poor principles.
With support from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Germany’s
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety
(BMUB), IUCN is engaged with partners in Cameroon, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia,
Mexico, Peru and Uganda to pilot and upscale frameworks and mechanisms that support
and deliver rights-based and pro-poor outcomes.
Global Forest and Climate
Change Programme
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