People in rural areas are more vulnerable to climate change impacts, crises and disasters. Women are particularly affected as they often do not have the same rights as men, their access to resources is more limited and they are not represented to the same extent in decision-making processes.

Women in rural areas are among the biggest bearers of knowledge on the protection, sustainable management and restoration of land resources, as well as agricultural methods that promote health and food security for their communities and societies overall. However, their limited access to means of production, land rights, advisory and financial services and their underrepresentation in local and international decision-making forums often leads to their increased vulnerability to land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

Empowering women in rural areas in managing land economically and ecologically contributes to gender equality and the Rio Conventions - the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The BMZ commissioned project "Women"s Empowerment for Resilient Rural Areas - WE4R" being implemented by GIZ pursues a gender-responsive and gender-transformative approach, working to target and eliminate structural inequalities that lead to lower resilience for rural women in the long run. It started in January 2024 and is projected to last for five years, concluding December 2028. The total budget is 15.7 million euros, of which 5 million euros are from cofinancing with the EU.

The project aims to strengthen the rights, resources and representation (3Rs) of women in rural areas in the context of the three Rio Conventions with regard to the sustainable use of land resources in the three African countries Kenya, Madagascar and Mali.

The project works with global and national partners to support women in rural areas who are particularly affected by soil degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change. It cooperates with the Secretariats of the Rio Conventions, national ministries and local and regional civil society organisations.

It also strives to pool expertise and experience on gender-specific approaches to ensure sustainable and climate-friendly land management. Together with its partners, the project feeds this knowledge into global and national dialogues that promote the implementation of the Rio Conventions.

The project focusses on women"s interests with regard to the use of land. It promotes individuals and organisations that are committed to strengthening the rights, resources and representation of women in political decisions and planning (gender change agents). To this end, the project finances measures led by civil society actors and promotes networking among gender change agents.

In Mali, Madagascar and Kenya, the project is implementing specific measures to promote women"s rights, access to resources and representation. It makes use of lessons learned at country level and together with its partners incorporates them into global level processes.

In the framework of its ongoing efforts to promote gender equality and institutional transformation, the WE4R project is committed to establishing a sustainable and effective network of Gender Change Agents (GCAs). GCAs are individuals and organisations who are actively involved in promoting women"s empowerment and thus able to contribute to the implementation of gender-responsive and gender-transformative processes in the context of sustainable management of land resources. GCAs are envisioned to operate at various levels - local, national, and global - and across a diverse range of institutions. Their role will be pivotal in driving forward gender-responsive or gender-transformational practices, policies, and mindsets within their respective spheres of influence.
To ensure the success of this initiative, the project recognizes the critical importance of equipping these GCAs with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools. This a structured and adaptable capacity development programme that can respond to the specific and evolving needs of the individuals and organizations involved. The programme must be designed to support both foundational learning and advanced thematic engagement, tailored to the diverse contexts in which the agents operate.
Furthermore, the project aims to provide targeted capacity development services not only to individual change agents but also to the broader stakeholder network. This includes institutions and organizations that are part of in-country implementation measures as well as those engaged at the global level. The capacity development services must therefore be flexible, scalable, and context-sensitive, ensuring relevance and impact across different operational environments.
To achieve this goal, the following work packages are foreseen:
Work package 1 aims to provide capacity development measures to strengthen individual GCAs in their ability to promote, champion and enable positive changes for the empowerment of women in the context of sustainable use of land resources at national level. To achieve this, needs-oriented trainings should enable GCA to represent the interests of women in the context of land resources, focussing especially on aspects of rights, resources and representation (3R) of women. The target beneficiaries of this work package are individual gender change agents from the WE4R sphere of activities at national level. This group has the potential to contribute to gender-transformative and gender-responsive processes on national and global level and to influence decisions and activities. They are highly motivated and well positioned to do so in the future. The individual beneficiaries can be both women and men (male allies). They are situated in one of the three partner countries.
Work Package 2 aims to increase the strategy development and communication and advocacy skills of another set of GCAs who have already acquired technical skills but who need deepened skill development to support of their roles in global events, such as the UNCCD COP.
The target beneficiaries of this work package are individual GCAs from the WE4R sphere of activities at the global level who have already successfully championed for positive change for the empowerment of women and are already well positioned with their respective organisations. They will bring specific transformation goals with them that have been already pursued or are in a mature planning stage. Many of them will already have a sound understanding of the structure of all three Rio Conventions (UNCCD, CBD, UNFCCC with focus on UNCCD) and the processes involved that leads to decision making (focus on COP processes). The goal is to support them in strategizing how to effectively engage in Rio-Convention spaces and processes to bring about positive changes for 3R in land resource management. Individuals from this group can be also outside the three partner countries.
Work package 3 aims at an organisational development program to strengthen the institutional capacity of nine women"s organisations to act for the sustainable management of land resources with a special focus on gender equality and the 3R approach. More efficient and successful organisations are an indispensable building block for initiating change at the national, regional, and global level. The main target group are organisations and individuals working for them that are crucial to drive the impact of these organisations on gender transformation in their respective country or sphere of influence. The program should be built around a mix of knowledge transfer and learning, face-to-face team interaction and individual coaching sessions to deepen knowledge and fine-tune strategies and actions of target organizations.

Global, Madagascar, Mali, Kenya

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