Call for Submissions
Women’s Economic Empowerment through Natural Resources: Opportunities, Innovations, and Challenges
A SYMPOSIUM
The Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) and Forest Resources Studies and Action Team (ForestAction) Nepal, in collaboration with other organizations, are organizing a symposium entitled Women’s Economic Empowerment through Natural Resources: Opportunities, Innovations and Challenges. We invite submissions from researchers, scholars, policymakers and practitioners engaged in initiatives related to women’s economic empowerment in the agriculture and/or forestry sectors.
Date: Last week of February 2025
Location: Kathmandu
Please submit an abstract of max. 300 words of the research, experiences and insights aligned with the symposium themes along with a summary CV.
The deadline for the abstract submission (papers/presentation/ poster) is January 15th, 2025.
You will be notified about the acceptance of your proposal by 20th January, 2025.
Please send your abstracts to: salu@sias-southasia.org
The Thematic Focus
Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is a prerequisite for achieving gender equality, and there have been different WEE frameworks that have suggested the means to achieve this. Women led and/or engaged enterprises are key strategies for achieving women’s economic empowerment and an inclusive economy. Despite its transformational potential, women in general, face political, socio-economic and cultural barriers in accessing resources, information, and networking and institutional support. Such disparities in access undermine their ability to establish and expand their enterprises or benefit the businesses they are involved in, especially in the context of fast-growing manifold impacts of climate change. In the context of growing risks from environmental and socio-economic factors and their impacts (especially in the context of natural resources), policies, strategies and practices need to become central to all debates and actions related to women’s economic empowerment.
In this symposium, we aim to bring together multiple actors – government, researchers and academia, development partners, civil society, private sector – to understand current challenges, review and learn from good practices and innovations and develop approaches and methodologies that inform policymakers and other key stakeholders, towards achieving women’s economic empowerment.
We would like the presentations/posters to focus on the following questions:
- Frameworks, approaches and methodologies: What are some of the innovative research methodologies and inclusive intervention processes that provide an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment?
- Opportunities and Challenges: What are the key opportunities and challenges in women’s economic empowerment through natural resources-based enterprises in the face of changing climate?
- Innovations and good practices: What are some key governance, institutional and technological innovations and good practices that can be scaled out and scaled up so that more and more women engage in and benefit from natural resources-based enterprises?
