BES-Net is committed to upholding gender equality and leaving no one behind in its work.
The case for gender mainstreaming in biodiversity, conservation and ecosystem services is critical. Women and girls still carry a triple burden in many local contexts, covering productive, reproductive and community roles. The fact that this challenge is not recognized is a major socioeconomic barrier to women’s empowerment. Biodiversity loss threatens food security, and declining agricultural productivity brings on diminishing incomes and greater vulnerability of communities, with women carrying the greater burden.
BES-Net strives to mainstream specific gender-related objectives, activities or indicators into the project’s different work streams. To this end, we aim to adopt a transdisciplinary mixed method to build greater evidence of how gender equality can be integrated into conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.
Secondly, we prioritize adequate representation considering how many women and girls and advocates of gender machineries are able to participate in decision-making responses, particularly with the implementation of the Regional/National Trialogue process, participation in the national ecosystem assessment process and the adoption of findings in national biodiversity-related policies, plans and programmes and in advocacy measures at the regional, national and subnational levels.
Finally, BES-Net leverages its position as a capacity-building network with a wide range of partnerships to open its platform for more scientists, policymakers, practitioners and representatives of women’s groups to build greater awareness of both gendered vulnerabilities and solutions for ecosystem management.
Gender in Trialogues
BES-Net is committed to upholding gender equality and leaving no one behind in its work. Amplifying women’s voices in the Trialogue process and including gender perspectives in its work, BES-Net also benefits from the wealth of experience that local biodiversity and gender organizations bring to its Network.
Focusing on gender mainstreaming and balancing women’s representation across BES-Net practice-policy-science communities, Phase I was dedicated to actively increasing women’s presence in Regional Trialogues.
Gender in National Ecosystem Assessments
BES-Net is working to ensure that multistakeholder representation is inclusive and includes women’s groups working in forestry, fisheries, agriculture and conservation to contribute evidence to national ecosystem assessment processes.
Within the assessments, we prioritize gender responsiveness in capacity-building activities such as Indigenous and local knowledge training and highlight lessons learned on gender mainstreaming in the assessment process and biodiversity planning and capacity-building for wider circulation.
Gender in the BES Solution Fund
BES-Net is working to mainstream gender equality in the development of all BES Solution Fund proposals and within related context-specific science-policy-practice community activities.
We strive to ensure that monitoring and evaluation for fund activities adequately assesses differentiated impacts on men and women and that proposals incorporate gender-focused capacity-building activities.
