Women play an integral role in managing the forest and farm interface in northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso, but face challenges during periods of change. The WAFFI project used participatory methods to understand how customary tenure systems differentially constrain men's and women's access to forests and trees. Key issues discussed in multi-stakeholder dialogues included the degradation of shea trees, fuelwood scarcity, and the differential effects of the increasing cash value of shea on men and women. The project concluded that its mixed methods approach facilitated engagement between farmers and effectively defined research agendas to inform policymakers.

1. XXV IUFRO World Congress
October 2, 2019
Curitiba, Brasil
Changing gender roles in the management of
the forest farm interface in northern Ghana
and southern Burkina Faso

2. Understanding change in
customary tenure in the
forest-farm interface
• Women play integral role in management of
forest farm interface in the Sahel
• Key challenges affect women during times of
change
• Customary tenure systems differentially constrain
access to forest and trees for men and women
• Formal policy does not fully support the roles of
women as resource managers
• Multi-stakeholder dialogue could be effective
strategy to support women and inform policy
makers
• Key is creating enabling conditions in which
farmers can engage with policy makers and
defend their interests and needs
WAFFI used participatory methods to facilitate
engagement, assist farms to define common
agenda, and refine research design to inform
dialogue

3. The WAFFI Project
Analyzed multi-village
landscapes in Burkina Faso
and Ghana
Twelve village sites
• The Nobéré commune in
the Zoundwéogo Province in
Burkina Faso
• The Kassena-Nankana
West District in the Upper
East region of Ghana

4. Mixed methods and
facilitated dialogue
Participatory methods to define
local context and issues
• Auto-appraisals
• Participatory Action Research (PAR)
Parallel socio-economic research
• Focus group interview
• Household survey
Village exchange workshops
Multi-stakeholder dialogues

5. Shifting patterns of
resource access
• Customarily: men own land – women access
land through male relatives
• Tree products (NTFPs) are traditional source of
income for women
• Customary tree tenure favors women, but
access to trees on farmland require permission
of ‘owner’
• In Ghana, women reported that market change
was leading to their loss of access to tree
products on farm and greater dependence on
NTFPs from parklands and reserves.

6. Identifying access rights
in farming behavior

7. Nature of rights claims

8. The role of tree products

9. Primary source of income

10. • Shea often described
as a “women’s tree
crop”
• Shea is a crucial
income source for
women at landscapes
• Men do harvest shea
for commercial
purposes
Shea
(Vitellaria paradoxa)
Tree product income

11. Tree product income

12. Shifting access
to shea income
• In Ghana, historic
stigma to men selling
shea in markets
• Key changes: Price
increased and buyers
purchasing shea in
villages
• Men claim greater
share of shea on farm
• Women pushed to
degraded distant shea

13. Focusing Multi-stakeholder
dialogue on local agenda
Emerging issues debated
• Shea tress facing increased degradation
pressures
• Increased scarcity of fuelwood due to expansion
of commercial charcoal and fuelwood sector
• Increase cash value of shea having differential
effect on men and women
Proposed strategies
• Strengthen women’s influence and opportunity
• Develop the shea sector by forming national
advocacy group
• Reduce pressure on shea trees
• Approach bushfire management holistically

14. Conclusions
• Smallholders occupy forest-farm interface – difficult
to separate agricultural and forest land use
• Formal and customary tenure overlap to create
complex gender differentiated systems shaping
access to and benefits from forest resources
• It is a challenge for outsiders to understand these
systems and for farmers articulate common agenda
• However, WAFFI’s mixed methods approach that
emphasized participatory approaches facilitated
farmer engagement, definition of research agenda,
and to generate evidence for decision makers.

15. With support from the CGIAR Fund Donors:
http://on.cgiar.org/CGIARFundDonors
Thank you
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