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Chapters Making forest tenure processes work for women

Introduction

  1. Foreword
  2. Message from the Executive Director
  3. The year that was
  4. Working towards impact

Ensuring forest landscapes provide climate solutions

  1. Eight forests, six countries and a shared framework for learning
  2. New terms for community forestry in Riau, Indonesia
  3. Community forest groups in Nepal invest in recharge ponds
  4. Moving beyond monoculture in Viet Nam’s coffee farms

Securing rights and inclusive governance

  1. Making forest tenure processes work for women
  2. Planning for forests through participation
  3. Strengthening inclusive governance in Chitwan’s buffer zones

Supporting growth of forest landscape-related businesses

  1. Building a mangrove business around mud crabs
  2. From forest management to forest income
  3. Building stronger coffee businesses in Viet Nam’s Central Highlands

Securing finance for sustainable forest landscapes

  1. Restoring watersheds, one tree at a time

Generating evidence for influence

  1. Chiang Mai’s community forests take ownership of biodiversity data
  2. Building a regional research community
  3. From development site to urban conservation area
  4. Mapping oil palm from the ground up
  5. Thai community forests earn Green Globe recognition

Engaging the public on forest landscape issues

  1. A new generation of forest guardians
  2. Community members map their forests in western Thailand
  3. Peering into curtained forests
  1. Board of Trustees
  2. Our project donors, partners and networks
A women standing in forest in Khoklouang village in Lao PDR
Securing rights and inclusive governance

Making forest tenure processes work for women

A pilot project in Lao PDR is testing how forest tenure recognition can better include women in decisions over forest land

In 2024, the Lao National Assembly passed Resolution 57. It allows communities residing in forest areas to receive land titles for permanent agricultural and residential land. For these new rights to be realized in practice, women must be able to participate fully in the decisions and planning processes that determine who holds and manages forest land.

However, women are largely absent from the forestry offices and village planning meetings where these rights are worked out. Even at the national level, women make up only around 10 per cent of foresters. Furthermore, only five per cent of them are decision-makers.

Turning rights into representation

Lao PDR's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has set a target of at least 20 per cent women in leadership and decision-making roles. However, there is a gap between this target and what still needs to be done to ensure women are positioned to plan, contribute to and lead actual forestry work.

In 2025, RECOFTC worked with the Lao Women's Union and the Department of Forestry, the Department of Land and the Department of Agriculture Land Management to pilot gender-sensitive approaches to forest tenure recognition in Khoksavang village, Xaybouathong district. We did this through our partnership with the Mekong Regional Land Governance (MRLG) project.

Sonephet — Lao PDR — Making forest tenure processes work for women

Embedding inclusion into tenure recognition

Our work involved developing training materials and checklists aligned with the government's guidelines on participatory land tenure recognition in forestlands. These tools were then used to embed gender considerations into planning from the start, not as an afterthought.

For women like Sonephet Xaysombath, our pilot has been personal as much as institutional. As a long-serving technical administrative staff at Xaybouathong District Agriculture and Forestry Office, she had found her role limited.

"Even though I was responsible for forest and timber inventory in the office, I was not encouraged to take on technical roles in field advocacy or land use planning or mapping," she says. "But things are changing now."

RECOFTC’s work is made possible with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Government of Sweden.