FAO statement at the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women - side event 'When digital entrepreneurship empowers women in the forest sector'

67th Session on the Commission on the Status of Women
Side event 'When digital entrepreneurship empowers women in the forest sector'

Gender equality and women's empowerment is at the core of FAO's mandate and the Forestry Division is no exception. The division ensures the systematic integration of a gender perspective and promote social inclusion in all forest-related initiatives, particularly those that directly target local communities, including through digital solutions. 

Women have a crucial role in the forest sector. They are still the main collectors of forest products and NWFP. However, despite a serious lack of sex-disaggregated data, it is more and more evident that they play a key role, not only in livelihood activities at community level, but also in productive and income-generating initiatives.  

The role of women entrepreneurs in forestry, however, is often invisible and unrecognized, since many of them   still face major challenges such as limited access to resources, including financial and digital resources. 

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”. 

Bringing women and other marginalized groups into technology results in more creative solutions and has greater potential for innovations that meet women’s needs and promote gender equality. Their lack of inclusion, by contrast, comes with massive costs: as per UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2022 report, women’s exclusion from the digital world has shaved $1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade—a loss that will grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025 without action. Reversing this trend will require tackling the problem of online violence, which a study of 51 countries revealed 38 per cent of women had personally experienced.   

Advancements in digital technology offer immense opportunities to address development and humanitarian challenges, and to achieve the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals.  

Likewise, in the forest sector, innovation and technologies offer outstanding tools that support women’s empowerment. The Forestry Division fully supports the development of digital solutions to encourage and assist women entrepreneurs to make their forest businesses secure, visible and sustainable for them and their communities.

Association of Women Producers and Traders of Secondary Forest Products (MALEBI) in Côte d’Ivoire shows how digital tools have the power to foster female leadership and more gender equality in forest entrepreneurship. 

Under the leadership of Ms. Delphine Ahoussi, President of MALEBI, an entirely female enterprise in a male-dominated sector, produces charcoal according to sustainable methods and through the use of the blockchain technology for a full traceability of the charcoal.

MALEBI challenges illegal production and restrictive gender norms while offering an agroforestry rehabilitation solution that combines the production of legal charcoal with plantations of Tek, Cassia Siamea and food crops in the Ahua gazetted forest. 

Ms. Ahoussi, we are so honored and grateful to have the opportunity to listen to you today, sharing your experience and success with the blockchain technology in the production of sustainable charcoal under your strong leadership. 

We have also the chance today to be inspired by the insightful experience of Kenza Benmoussa, focal point for Morocco of the WeCan initiative and founder of a 100 percent digital startup dedicated to assisting businesses on their path to ecological responsibility and sustainability. By offering digital skills training and supporting women and men to adopt eco-friendly behaviors, the startup “Now or Never” aims to create a positive and lasting impact on the environment while also helping corporates to build a more inclusive and digitally savvy workforce.