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 in a post-Rio+20 worldnewsMountain women will come under the spotlight in October as the government of Bhutan holds an international conference on gender and sustainable mountain development. The conference, Bhutan+10: Gender and Sustainable Mountain Development in a Changing World, is being organized in the context of the Mountain Partnership with key support from the...
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The Mountain PartnershipnewsThe Mountain Partnership is a United Nations voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain peoples and protecting mountain environments around the world. The partnership addresses the challenges that mountain regions are facing by tapping the wealth and diversity of resources, knowledge, information and expertise, in...
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Rio+20 and Women’s Lives: a Cross-generational DialogueeventThe Ford Foundation will hold “Rio+20 and Women’s Lives: a Cross-generational Dialogue”, a side event to be held on 20 June 2012, in Rio de Janeiro. At the press briefing, co-sponsored by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP), the Climate Wise Women and the Columbia University Coalition...
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Third International Women of the Mountains ConferenceeventThe goals of the 2012 Women of the Mountains International Conference were to discuss pressing issues concerning mountain communities in the Andean regions of Peru and Surrounding countries; to continue traditions of two previous international Conferences, organized by UVU and IUK in Orem, Utah in 2007 and 2011; and to...
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What women want from Rio+20newsAs first recognized twenty years ago, at the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio, women have a vital role in environmental management and development. Their full participation is therefore essential to achieve sustainable development. UN Women, the newest member of the United Nations family, will be championing...
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ICIMOD Annual Report 2011 now releasedpublicationThe Annual Report 2011 gives a brief overview of ICIMOD’s activities over the past year including advocating mountain issues in global forums, an international conference on green economy and sustainable mountain development, and important contributions to knowledge of snow and glacier cover and climate change impacts in the... Download » |
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