Capacity Building Workshop on Gender and Development organised by LCBC – CARE International
The Programme to Rehabilitate and Strengthen the Resilience of Socio-ecological Systems in the Lake Chad Basin (PRESIBALT), in partnership with Care International, organised a workshop on “Gender and Development” from 1 to 5 June in Mara – N’Djamena. About twenty executives, officials, and experts of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) took part.
Today, it is essential for any organisation moving forward to reflect on male and female gender roles and the fact that human beings act and are perceived as gendered whether they like it or not. It serves, among other things, to guide the respective roles and positions of women and men in a given path and create enabling conditions for them to perform more effectively.
The reflection can also help to broaden and even transcend gender roles. It has been captured by organisations such as LCBC, for whom “gender”, gender equality, women’s empowerment and rights are and remain central to the strategic vision and mandate for the sustainable and equitable management of water and other environmental resources in the Lake Chad Basin.
Indeed, be it managing local landscapes, adapting to climate change, producing, and providing food, water, sanitation, and energy sustainably, women cannot be ignored today. Their knowledge, organisations and collective actions are crucial to find, demonstrate and establish more economically, socially, and ecologically sustainable paths.
For all these reasons, LCBC adopted a resolution at the last Council of Ministers to conduct a gender audit. As such, the Commission is carrying out concrete actions in all directions to improve the situation of women in the Lake Chad Basin. One example is the implementation of PRSESIBALT. The programme, among other things, gives pride of place to women, mainly through building their resilience and improving their access to local governance of resources.
Similarly, all projects and programmes of LCBC include provisions, conventions and conditions aimed at protecting women and promoting gender mainstreaming at all levels. In addition, LCBC takes more outstanding account of promoting gender in all development strategies and programmes. Although countless efforts are being made to consider gender better, reiterating and reviewing it is always essential. Hence, this workshop aims to understand and analyse the applicability of gender to all development programmes and projects of LCBC.
