In Uganda, there are still gaps in the policies for addressing the relationships between gender and natural resources. The 2030 Agenda emphasizes the need for gender mainstreaming, with nine Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a total of 29 indicators that can be broken down by sex; many of them, however, are not yet measurable (United Nations, 2015). Significantly, none of these gender-sensitive indicators are related to the environment or natural resources. Progress must therefore be made in analysing the interdependence between natural resources (environmental dimension), gender issues (social dimension) and productive activities (economic dimension) to encourage the design of more comprehensive policies within the framework of the 2030 Agenda.

NAREGONET is working on gender issues and attention is being drawn to the need to include a gender perspective in ensuring access to and improving domestic water supplies, and to implement public policies in order to increase women’s access to land ownership, and through that, access to natural resources and their governance. NAREGONET examines gender challenges in the context of climate change and its close relationship to natural resources. It highlights the greater vulnerability that women face through unequal access and governance at a time of increasingly frequent disasters and their negative effects. Thus, NAREGONET contributes to the mainstreaming of gender considerations in policies related to the governance of natural resources.

The NAREGONET Gender Agenda seeks to close the gaps in this area by supporting public policies that guarantee women’s autonomy and rights, and by presenting recommendations to address the causes of inequality, policy proposals and perspectives in favour of gender equality, women’s human rights, intersectionality and interculturality, parity-based democracy and inclusive sustainable development.

Therefore, in order to comply with the 2030 Agenda, Uganda must address the structural challenges that perpetuate gender gaps and ensure the full exercise of women’s human rights to ensure them a life of dignity. Achieving this demands an understanding of the relationship between gender dynamics and natural resources, of the particular vulnerability of women to climate change and their economic dependence on natural resources, and of the sexual division of labour, where natural resources are fundamental for the provision of food and care and in which activities women play a leading role, because of cultural and patriarchal structures. At the same time, gender inequalities are also present in the governance of natural resources. Because of this, a clear gender focus at a comprehensive, multisectoral level must be incorporated into access to natural resources and the environment and the management thereof.

NAREGONET explores the dynamics of how gender differences relate with natural resources and then examine the consequences of gender inequity in the economic, social and environmental spheres as regards the management and governance of water, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and mining.