2023-07-03 15:00:00
Since 2016, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) has been offering women’s empowerment workshops in rural Morocco. This should encourage and enable them to better recognize their self-worth, to define their own goals and to strategically approach their plans for the future. The “Imagine” seminar offers four days of space for the search for personal and collective self-empowerment.
“Imagine” refers to the rights women have according to the Moudawana, Moroccan family law, and supports themselves in knowing these rights better for their own protection. By joining together to form cooperatives, women can increase their financial independence and thus participate in fair development.
The HAF recently analyzed the work of two different groups of women from the rural municipality of Toubkal in the province of Taroudant, where two climate initiatives took place.
— High Atlas Foundation (@AtlasHigh) March 19, 2022
Positive influence of the “Imagine” workshops
In 2017, in the village of Aguerzrane, the Foundation offered an “Imagine” development and empowerment project for women. During the seminar, the participants looked at the social environment in their lives that influences them in achieving their own goals In workshops, the women also discussed their attitudes towards work and money, emotions and the body, sexuality and spirituality (in a Moroccan-Islamic context) and their visions for the future.
After this participatory workshop experience, the women of Aguerzrane decided to start an organic nursery with fruit trees and medicinal herbs. They believed that organic farming would provide them with an income from selling crops locally, while at the same time meeting the community’s basic domestic needs.
The nursery was established in 2018 on newly created terraced acreage used to stabilize the eroding mountainside and has been productively farmed ever since. Professional training courses are held regularly by highly qualified volunteers as part of the USAID “Farmer-to-Farmer” program.
The second village, Missour, is one kilometer north of Aguerzrane. In 2018, the HAF received a request from the local farmers for cherry, walnut and almond trees, which they complied with.
Compared to the first community, the “Imagine” workshop with its participatory methods was not carried out here. Instead, the women farmers only received the trees in the quantity and variety they wanted, planted and tended them.
The HAF then sponsored a thesis to examine the social and economic impact of the program on both villages, in Aguerzane, where the women had attended a self-empowerment workshop before seeds and materials were delivered, and in Missour, where they planted the trees provided without prior participatory preparation.
Researcher Nora Martetschläger lived in the communities for three months and collected data at the individual and community levels to analyze the different dimensions of poverty.
In a publication summarizing her analysis, Martetschläger states: “Although the other village [Aguerzane]which had fewer trees planted scored lower overall on most poverty indicators, women’s participation in education and employment was higher because of greater individual and collective awareness and action in these areas.”
More participation means more opportunities
In Missour, on the other hand, women might hardly benefit from the higher incomes, even though household incomes increased and food security improved.
On the other hand, greater participation in girls’ education and an increase in the literacy rate of women might not be determined. However, two families had moved to the city, where girls have better educational opportunities – the new income from the fruit trees probably made this step possible at least in part.
The study makes it clear that the connection between women’s empowerment and measurable climate action represents a significant challenge for inclusive system change and national resilience. The HAF women empowerment workshops have proven to be an effective strategy to improve sustainable development. However, the great demand for such strategies is offset by limited organizational capacities.
After reading Martetschläger’s study, the HAF in Missour has put things right by conducting “Imagine” workshops in the village. Funds have also been raised by the University of Virginia’s Darden School to build agricultural terraces on an eroding mountainside that the Missour community is helping their women’s group provides, raised.
No fair decentralization without participation
However, such measures are limited by the current capacities: The High Atlas Foundation employs 15 seminar leaders for the empowerment workshops and has set itself the goal of planting at least 1.7 million trees with 10,000 farming families in 160 communities this year.
These goals show the magnitude of the structural challenge behind the implementation of strategic community-developed solutions. The HAF has a nationwide strategy, but lacks the funding and human resources for low-carbon agriculture to ensure women and girls are direct beneficiaries.
Another finding of this study is the potential challenges of decentralization without prior involvement of the local level. The strengthening of power at the sub-national level that accompanies decentralization will further consolidate the existing class and gender-specific stratification of society in the sub-national legal systems.
If there is no participation in projects to implement climate-friendly agriculture, a similar effect might occur and the unfair distribution of power and resources might continue. The participation of women and girls at all stages of development must be a priority for climate action to have a positive impact on their lives, their families, their communities and the country.
Joseph Ben Meir
Yossef Ben-Meir is President of the High Atlas Foundation and Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia.
Translated from English by Karola Klatt.
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