Volume 5, Number 2
October 1999

Gender and the Environment

David Gambill (dgambill@devtechsys.com), environment advisor to USAID's Women In Development office, asked whether examples exist of women's participation in common property management organizations leading to improvements in the resource base or the environment. Gambill cited the example of women setting up reserves for fruit and minor forest products, thereby limiting logging, when they were included in the decisionmaking about a forest reserve.

Claudy Vouhe (c.vouhe@ucl.ac.uk) of the Development Planning Unit, University College London, suggested several possible leads. The Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia is doing more and more on Participatory Rapid Appraisal, gender, and agriculture, particularly in water and soil conservation. An ongoing training program in the ministry promotes gender institutionalization: for example, the national development plan and the new reform of the statistical system requires gender disaggregation. CREDIF (Centre de Recherches, d'Etudes, de Documentation et d'Information sur la Femme, Avenue du Roi Abdel Aziz Al Saoud, Rue 7131, El Manar II, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia) is the main partner in the gender institutionalization project. Vouhe and his colleagues are also working on gender and environment issues in Egypt. Nadia Taher (n.taher@ucl.ac.uk) can be contacted for names and information.