With support from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the Dominican Republic has completed a comprehensive gender analysis that takes stock of current barriers for women’s participation in REDD+, and a gender action plan that proposes strategies to overcome existing barriers.   

The gender analysis found critical gaps in two main areas: 1) institutional barriers such as economic, political, and legal conditions; 2) behavioral barriers including psychological, cultural, social and material constraints. Specifically, the study identified gender barriers and gaps in environmental and agricultural areas, and how REDD+ strategies could address these problems.

Key barriers identified in the gender analysis included:

• The absence of female participation in agricultural production;
• The lack of benefits for women working in forest production;
• Minimal female land ownership and access to credit facilities; and
• Negligible participation of women in decision making, productive activities, and agricultural and environmental organizations.

The Dominican Republic’s gender action plan proposes strategies to overcome these existing barriers, in line with three priorities: 1) increasing the visibility of women in forestry and agriculture; 2) increasing women’s participation as members and in leadership roles in agricultural and forestry organizations, and in REDD+ initiatives; 3) reducing gaps in land tenure, and incorporating women into the agricultural and forestry labor market, specifically in REDD+ initiatives.

The gender action plan proposes several initiatives to promote women’s participation in all REDD+ activities, including:

• Creating baseline studies on women’s participation in pertinent agricultural and environmental sectors and in areas that help with gender monitoring and evaluation;
• Strengthening women and youth participation and empowerment in areas related to the gaps and barriers identified;
• Guaranteeing the equitable distribution of benefits in REDD+ initiatives for women, youth, and men;
• Strengthening institutional capacities to carry out gender inclusion and the gender action plan; and
• Strengthening capacities for all stakeholders through continuous and various capacity-building activities and awareness-raising campaigns.

Workshop highlights

The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Environmental hosted a virtual workshop on April 8, 2021, to discuss its gender analysis and action plan.  Experts at the workshop underscored how the country’s gender plan will strengthen the cross-cutting gender inclusion approach in the design and implementation of the Dominican Republic’s national REDD+ strategy (ENREDD+). Workshop presentations also highlighted how benefits from emission reductions will be more fairly distributed under new gender equality criteria.

To ensure the inclusion of women in the agricultural and forestry sectors and to increase their economic and social opportunities, workshop participants learned how the Dominican Republic’s gender action plan is linked to various national policies and government programs, including the National Development Strategy 2030, the Agricultural Sectoral Strategic Plan 2030, the National Plan for Equity and Gender Equality, the National Plan for Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security 2022, as well as the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.

Workshop participants included representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry for Women, the Ministry of Economics, Planning and Development, producer associations participating in the study, women’s groups involved in agriculture and forestry, universities with gender and climate change programs, and international development agencies.

Next steps

The Dominican Republic’s gender analysis and action plan have been reviewed and approved by World Bank gender and environmental experts, as well as the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. A series of activities laid out in the gender action plan has been incorporated into the Dominican Republic’s operational annual plan that will to be executed in 2021 with REDD+ Readiness Funds from the FCPF.