The purpose of this study is to understand the legal and policy constraints and opportunities in each of the 17-carbon fund (CF) countries affecting women’s land and forest tenure. The study also explores women’s ability to exercise land and forest rights in statutory and customary systems; how these rights may be affected by the CF programs (ERPs and BSPs); as well as what is needed to further protect and strengthen women’s rights to land and forest tenure along with their ability to govern in the CF countries.

This practitioner’s guide explains how to promote gender-responsive forest tenure reform in community-based forest regimes. It is aimed at those taking up this challenge in developing countries. There is no one single approach to reforming forest tenure practices for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. Rather, it involves taking advantage of opportunities that emerge in various institutional arenas such as policy and law-making and implementation, government administration, customary or community-based tenure governance, or forest restoration at the landscape scale.