Strategic Plan for WOCAN
2007-2010

WOCAN is an international network of women and men professionals who are dedicated to increasing rural women's access to and control of resources to manage agriculture and natural resources in order to enhance their livelihoods and alleviate poverty. Our mission is to build the leadership of women in agriculture and natural resource management for organizational transformation for gender equality through an innovative approach of partnering motivated professional and rural women. WOCAN's global network of members provides skills in agriculture and natural resource management technologies, gender mainstreaming, organizational change, negotiation, policy and decision-making, participation, advocacy and women's leadership to secure women's equal access to and control of resources and benefits to improve the livelihoods of rural people.

Our vision is that organizations engaged in agriculture and natural resource management fully recognize and support the roles and leadership of women farmers, environmental managers, professionals and decision makers, leading to an equal distribution of responsibilities, rights, benefits and power between women and men in the management of natural resources to achieve sustainable development and poverty alleviation.

Themes
WOCAN members in over 80 countries have expertise covering a diverse range of natural resource management sectors, including forestry, energy, land and water resources, fisheries, livestock, agriculture and rural development. WOCAN works on issues related to agriculture and rural development, biodiversity, climate change, desertification, energy, forestry, leadership, mountain development and organizational change.

Core Strategies
Three strategies will address the goals for the next three years (2007-2009):

1. Build women champions within agriculture and natural resource management organizations and amongst rural women by establishing training centers and cadres of highly skilled trainers to offer women's leadership training at regional levels. Regional meeting of members held in various geographical areas, projects implemented with members in Africa, Asia and Latin America and a women's leadership course all provide opportunities for WOCAN to build the capacities of rural and professional women on gender analysis, gender mainstreaming, mentoring, organizational change and various technical skills such as those of agro-enterprise, value chain management and marketing. These fora allow members to use their own skills and knowledge to develop plans of action based on local contexts and needs of professional and rural women.

2. Advocate at global, regional and national levels for greater benefits and decision making for rural women. Significant differences exist between the actors promoting environment/rural development and those promoting gender equality and women's rights, leaving a vacuum in policies and programs dealing with poverty alleviation and sustainable development at global, regional and national levels. In part, this is due to too few women to champion these causes. WOCAN is at the interface and as one of the very few networks with feet in both camps, is invited to advocate in both of these fora by UN agencies and others.

3. Develop WOCAN as the global center of excellence of learning and communication on organizational change and women's leadership in the fields of gender and agriculture/NRM. Key to the success of WOCAN's efforts to build capacity is a focus on communication and learning, and the sharing of knowledge and information. The website is designed to support the global network of members to share their knowledge and experiences and to communicate directly with each other to share research results, pose questions, or search for a partner for a collaborative initiative. WOCAN staff continually upload their extensive set of documents, presentations, announcements and reports to keep the knowledge up to date.

Administrative Support
The structure of WOCAN includes an international secretariat that oversees and manages all global affairs and fund raising, and regional and national offices or chapters. While WOCAN is registered in the US, WOCAN members in over 75 countries represent their own countries and regions. There is currently an office in Nepal; another is at the CIFOR office in Cameroon for the West and Central Africa Chapter. Other regional and national chapters and offices are expected to be established in the near future, following regional meetings of members.

Staffing of the Secretariat includes the Executive Director, an Assistant Director/Director of Programs and interns. Due to the virtual nature of the organization, and its small full time staffing needs, the WOCAN Secretariat keeps overhead costs to a minimum. This enables more resources to be used for program activities, and for regional and national offices. This also encourages us to develop collaborative arrangements with other networks and organizations, which fits with our networking and capacity building goals.
The body of people to implement WOCAN activities and projects is the Core Team (termed ‘Associates'). This is a group of experienced and highly motivated professionals who develop project proposals, assist the Director with fund raising, then oversee implementation.In this way, WOCAN provides a legal framework supporting and linking the efforts of these highly skilled individuals, benefiting from their networks to build synergies and share knowledge throughout the WOCAN network. This serves to keep WOCAN salary and administrative costs at a very low level, while delivering high quality services.
In addition, WOCAN is establishing a ‘consulting wing' that will raise funds by undertaking consulting work for bilateral and multilateral donors. A roster of WOCAN members who know and appreciate WOCAN's principles and approach, and who are able to use the consulting opportunity to enhance WOCAN members' capacities, through involving them to varying degrees in the consulting work form a consulting group. This group is able to take advantage of a lack of women-led organizations that are providing expertise in agriculture and NRM and gender for donors.

 

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