Impact pathways

Social and political change can occur through multiple avenues, such as through improved knowledge and technology, collective organisation and mobilisation or contestation. Research and action in the CRP-FTATA will make use of these various avenues for strengthening access of women and other disadvantaged groups to benefits and decision making in forest, tree and agroforestry research.

The achievement of this impact pathway is conditioned on a careful mix of research, advocacy, training and capacity building as well as on innovations in policy and practice. A series of partnerships and carefully crafted iterative processes are envisaged. For example, problem identification and research priorities will be established jointly with national-level partners, such as government ministries, university departments (e.g., Departments of Women and Gender Studies), and NGOs active in the forestry sectors at national and subnational levels. Representatives from each of these organisations will advise the research and action process, will review findings, identify entry points for policy and practice, and define possibilities and responsibilities for implementation. We anticipate that bringing in implementing actors at such an early stage will foster joint ownership, coproduction and joint responsibility for outcomes and learning.

Activities for transitioning from outputs to outcomes will include:

• collaboration with government ministries, NGOs and women’s organisations;
• gender-differentiated cost–benefit analyses of impacts;
• awareness raising and capacity building for women and men; and
• the use of pilot projects to demonstrate the value addition of increased attention to gender.