World Bank Nepal Forest for Prosperity Project- Women Leaders Exposure Visit

Dibya Gurung, WOCAN Core Associate and Nisha Onta facilitated the exposure visit for 20 women leaders from World Bank Nepal’s Forest for Prosperity Projects (FPP) stakeholder groups on 23-26 January in Chitwan, Nepal. There were Deputy Mayors, Chairperson and members of CFUGs, women entrepreneurs and forest officers from Lumbini and Madhesh Province. They visited:

1. Forest Action’s Project “Economic Empowerment of Women through Forest Solutions” in Nawalparasi (Gaidakot). The CFUG is comprised of landless Dalit community. They were engaged in leaf plate production from the Sal leaves which they collected from the forest and exploring other sustainable production of forest products
2. National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC)-Hariyoban Project site in Padampur, Chitwan. This is a USAID project which has phased out. They met women’s cooperative who are also members of CFUG. These women leaders have established wool and carpet weaving and garment business.
3. Khumrose Community Forestry – Project site of NTNC in Saurah, Chitwan. They met members of the CFUG and discussed issues related to community forest management, women’s leadership and cash crop cultivation

Some of their reflections:

• I realized women can be self-sufficient by using the resources on and off the forest.
• I am motivated to go back and start income-generating activities
• We need more support in sustaining the businesses, in the field site we saw NGO partners who were supporting marketing of the products
• we need a market study on what we have and what we can make that is marketable
• we have received a lot of training but hardly anyone uses the training to start a business, trainings need to understand the available resources, the need of the women and the market for the products
• We need to strengthen our network, cannot achieve much if we just fight alone.
• Local government also need to support women’s groups
• access to information and opportunities are also an issue, we are not aware of schemes and programs
• we need more women in a decision-making position, who also works for women’s empowerment and who have access to finance to support women entrepreneurs
• we saw women with very few resources and from Dalit groups doing so well, I feel like I am so lazy that I am not utilizing all the resources around me.