WOCAN organized a side event in the United Nation Conference on Sustainable Development or mostly known as Rio+20 Conference in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on 17th June, 2012. The event entitled ‘Women’s Leadership in a Green Economy: Valuing Women’s Contribution’ was attended by 30 participants. Five speakers delivered presentations highlighting the importance of women’s leadership in green economy initiatives. Dr. Bambang Supriyanto of Ministry of Forestry, Indonesia explored the ways in which gender perspective and women empowerment could be adopted in Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) projects and policies in Indonesia. Abidah Setyowati of WOCAN presented a case study on women leadership in community forestry and Payment for Environmental Services project in Jambi Province, Indonesia and underlined that while women have significantly contributed to the success of the initiative, their contribution was often undermined and limitedly acknowledged.
Meena Bilgi of WOCAN India explored a case study in Gujarat, India, in which women successfully made organic manure that helped the communities to improve land productivity. Cecile Njebet of REFACOF presented a short documentary movie describing how women in a coastal region of Cameroon protect a rare, multiple use forest trees, to prevent its extinction while generating an income from its nuts. Dr. Jeannette Gurung, the executive director of WOCAN concluded by presenting a new WOCAN initiative, Women Carbon Standard. During the discussion, participants addressed the needs to establish mechanisms to value women’s contribution in sustainable development and explored ways to scale up the best practices.