Institute for Sustainable Development - ISD

Commitment to Address Gaps in Women’s Access to Productive Resources
A two-day sensitization workshop held on 22–23 July 2025, in Woldiya town brought together government officials from relevant sector offices, leaders from Land Administration Committee, WCSA (Women, Children & Social Affairs) and Social Justice/Court of the RWCC project Kebeles, NGOs including WE-Action, ORDA, Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara, and private sector representatives to discuss the structural barriers rural women in Habru and Gubalafto weredas face in accessing and controlling productive resources like land, capital, and agricultural inputs.
Participants recognized that even if there are supportive laws in the Amhara Region, women still face significant challenges due to social norms, weak law enforcement, lack of legal aid, and limited legal awareness. The workshop concluded with a collective commitment to collaborate in addressing these implementation gaps and improving women's access to and control over productive resources.

The intersection of gender, agriculture, and climate change relating to women's and farmers' rights and climate resilience
In July 2025, ISD successfully organized a two-day training on "The intersection of gender, agriculture, and climate change relating to women's and farmers' rights and climate resilience," funded by SeedChange Canada. The training took place in Woldiya town and engaged a total of 99 participants, comprising 75 representatives from community-based organizations (CBOs), religious leaders (both female and male), as well as diverse youth and adult rural women and male leaders from the Habru and Gubalafto weredas. Among the participants, 6 identified as disabled. Additionally, 24 experts from various government offices, including Agriculture, Environment Protection, and Land Administration, along with NGOs focusing on issues related to climate change and gender, actively participated.
The training aimed to address the specific challenges and opportunities that women and men face in agriculture amid climate change, highlighting their rights and fostering resilience. It emphasized the intersection of gender inequalities with climate risks and demonstrated how empowering women and promoting gender equality can enhance Gender-Transformative agriculture practices and overall climate resilience.
To facilitate learning, the training included presentations on key concepts linking gender, agriculture, and climate change, group discussions, and interactive exercises, supplemented by visual tools and video presentations.
The event concluded with a Call to Action for the establishment of a Zonal Platform, through which ISD aims to build strong relationships with various stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of the RWCC project, share knowledge on different approaches to addressing climate change while emphasizing the integration of gender considerations into these initiatives at the project area, thus scaling up the RWCC’s Gender-Transformative Agroecology Model, enhance stakeholders’ understanding of how to promote gender equality and women's empowerment within the context of climate change through their programmatic interventions. Visual tool, Video Show, which says: Why
Climate Resilience Is Like a Tiger Chase (link: https://youtu.be/GUl_k2yaXZw) was also used on the
training.
Overall, the training successfully promoted collaboration and provided valuable insights on integrating gender perspectives into climate resilience efforts in agriculture. The next steps involve actively working towards establishing the Zonal Platform and continuing the engagement with stakeholders to further the objectives of the RWCC project.