Gender issues in mountains

Women and men play key roles with respect to environmental protection and social and economic development in mountain areas. Women are often the primary managers of mountain resources, guardians of biodiversity and the main actors in terms of agriculture, animal husbandry and other small scale economic activities. In mountain communities, women  are keepers of traditional knowledge, custodians of local culture and experts in traditional medicine.

However, women mountain dwellers are often invisible and their voices go unheard. They rarely participate in decisions affecting the management and use of local resources; they often lack basic rights, have little access to ownership and land tenure rights, education, health services and training. Since women and girls have less access to household resources, they are at a greater risk of hunger and malnutrition.

As men migrate to lowlands areas or abroad in search of better income, women are left to manage the farm and household and participate in small trade and income-earning activities. Yet lack of access to credit hampers efforts to improve or expand their farm activities and earn cash incomes. Inaccessibility shapes the lives of mountain communities. Further, the challenges men and women face in mountain regions is intensified by altitude, steep terrain and isolation.

Mountain women of the world

In 2022 and 2023, the Mountain Partnership Secretariat teamed up with the Feminist Hiking Collective – a non-profit organization and transnational hub for feminist hikers, and a member of the Mountain Partnership – on a social research project to identify the main challenges faced by mountain women and support their collective power, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic recovery. 

In-depth interviews were conducted with 313 mountain women in Argentina, Chile, Italy, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, the Plurinational State of Bolivia and the United Republic of Tanzania. The result of this collaboration was the publication of two reports, Mountain women of the world – Challenges, resilience and collective power and Mountain women of the world – Shaping change for the common good.

The Feminist Hiking Collective and the Mountain Women of the World Network are producing a documentary series on their interviews with the women in each country. Watch the videos here:

• Trailer
• Argentina
• Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
• Chile
• Italy (coming soon)
• Kenya (coming soon)
• Kyrgyzstan (coming soon)
• Nepal (coming soon)
• United Republic of Tanzania (coming soon)