Women involved in the DRYAD project have made remarkable advances in participation, decision making and financial empowerment.

In the Financing Sustainable Community Forest Enterprises in Cameroon project, known as DRYAD, which ran 2015–2020, all 29 community forests in the DRYAD portfolio now have women on their executive committees; women head 44% of community forest enterprises; and almost half of those trained and employed in the enterprises are women.

These are unprecedented statistics for the community forest sector in Cameroon: before DRYAD women were passive in both participation and management.

But the inclusion of vulnerable community groups — including women — in decision-making structures just for the sake of numbers may not change anything for the better nor achieve the objective of inclusivity. Empowerment of women, in particular, to actively participate and make decisions was, therefore, a priority for DRYAD. Women were helped to sample community opinion and defend the interests of community members during meetings. Women, and men, were trained in the importance of gender in managing community forest enterprises and women, in particular, were empowered to take up leadership positions.

• DRYAD enabled the inclusion in community forest management of women (70% of the cases) and minorities (20% of the cases).
• About 993 women (51%) and 962 men (49%) participated in one, or a combination of, training sessions. About 100 sessions were held on management, accounting, sustainable practices, and data collection.
• Women are currently managing a total of 11 community forest enterprises, principally producing non-timber forest and agricultural products.

Funded by the Government of the United Kingdom and implemented in collaboration with TMP Systems, NGOs and community forest groups, DRYAD was an experiment in deploying public finance to de-risk and prepare community forest enterprises in Cameroon for private investment through a performance-based finance approach. It achieved equitable access to finance to catalyze sustainable enterprises of products and services for forest communities.

Forestry in Cameroon is one of the largest economic sectors, creating thousands of jobs and generating significant export revenue. Like most countries in Central Africa, many people in Cameroon depend on forests for a living, with timber contributing about 12% of gross domestic product. The sector still has strong potential to transform the lives of millions of forest-dependent communities and others. However, limited access to equitable finance has been failing the sector, particularly, the community forest groups.

The empowerment of community members to develop different activities within community forest groups generated specific interest for women, who preferred activities such as creating non-timber forest and agricultural products rather than growing and harvesting timber trees.

‘In that past, most women considered community forestry to be only for men because most activies were focused on timber,’ said Divine Foundjem Tita, marketing specialist with the ICRAF West Africa team and focal point for DRYAD. ‘As such, the women were less interested to participate in the activities of community forestry. Thanks to DRYAD, women now are commited to manage community forests because they have tasted the benefits of participation and decision making in choosing and managing enterprises that are benficial to them.’

Through DRYAD, women now understand that they don’t have to wait on others who want to exploit timber grown in their community forests: they can develop income-generating activities through their community forest enterprises using different resources, such as non-timber forest products, agriculture, agroforestry, aquaculture and tourism.

For example, women of the Cobaba Community Forest Enterprise in Zoulabot, a village in the Eastern Region, part of the district of Lomié, were processing cassava harvested from agroforestry systems into flour and ‘bobolo’ or cassava stick, a Cameroonian dish of a fermented tuber of crushed cassava wrapped in a stick-shaped leaf and steamed.
 

After the DRYAD team evaluated the costs and income, however, they discovered that the women were not making enough profit to make the business sustainable. With support from a marketing consultant, the women’s group decided to focus their efforts on just processing dried cassava and selling that. They packaged the dried cassava in 100 kg bags sold at USD 34. The consultant also helped the women’s group improve their overall management skills to further increase the economic value generated from the cassava. The women now have mastered the different stages of managing their product and the revenue generated has helped hire a second schoolteacher to complement the Government one. Thanks to the project, now more children have access to primary education.

DRYAD created employment and a new income source for this group of women farmers and many others. Their salaries help them pay labour costs on their farms and meet some of their families’ basic needs, such as food and fuel. They also hope to build a medical centre to avoid travelling long distances.

Throughout Cameroon, DRYAD supported nine types of products — cassava, timber, bush mango ‘eru’ (Gnetum africanum), ‘njangsang’ (Ricinodendron heudoletii or Ricinodendron africanum (Bail.) Pierre ex Pax), rattan, fish, plantain, maize, ‘garri’ (cassava flour) and charcoal — for community forest enterprises to help them overcome the financial and technical challenges they faced. By the close of the project in June 2020, emergent growth was recorded in community forest enterprises’ portfolios, with 29 of the initially selected 34 in operation recording a low failure rate of 5.88% against the average national failure rate of 90% in the first year.