Increasing Access to Safe Water in Sudan

NEF UK’s Empowering Women Through Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFP) project has seen substantial progress with its gender-focused value chain approach to using the harvesting of non-wood forest products to alleviate poverty while improving agency and inclusion for women. It has surpassed goals for reach, knowledge building, and increased income.

In Sudan, women make up 72% of those involved with the harvesting and selling of forest fruits but earn 80% less than men in the sector. NEF’s Comic Relief-funded efforts in rural Sudan are working to change this by introducing women’s voices into the negotiation process, creating market linkages, and establishing standard pricing. This is positively impacting the lives of women and their families in poor, remote Sudanese communities by increasing their incomes and also improving the management of natural resources. NEF is working to introduce new techniques for producing and harvesting key non-wood forest products, such as gum arabic, desert dates, honey, sider, baobab, and other local forest fruits that improve quality but reduce the degradation of the trees that produce them. The formation and capacity building of local women’s associations is the main entry point for the empowerment process that NEF seeks to achieve for women in these communities. The women’s associations act as a cooperative for efforts around marketing, commercialization, sales, and management of these natural resources.

Ms. Raugia is a member of the women’s association participating in the project in Tafentara. In an interview at one of the women’s meetings, Ms. Raugia offered a few words regarding her impression of the project.

Before the project, as women and according to our culture, we were not allowed to go out or do anything to improve our economic situation, as these are activities are done solely by men. When the project started, it was so difficult for our relatives and husbands to accept the idea of allowing us to take part. Yet, after we got involved in project activities, they noticed the positive changes that began to occur within us as women and with respect to our economic situations as families. Now, we are of great help to our husbands and our families financially, and have become outspoken regarding many issues pertaining to our economic and social situations.”

“Not only that, we became outspoken regarding many issues pertaining to our economic and social situation.”

Ms. Raugia continues, “Now, through this project, we became able to speak our minds, plan for ourselves, deal with our community issues, and manage our projects and activities within our associations. We are now comfortable taking the initiative to contact all the concerned government departments and companies regarding processing our permissions. We were not familiar with all of these skills before the project. With the self-confidence we have acquired, I can say that we can now represent the women of our community in every gathering and every official meeting.”