I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to the Workshop and providing me with an opportunity to address these issues. I'd like to make a couple of general points and then give specific comments on the papers.
The change in the title of the fourth panel is very important. It is essential that we focus on opportunities and on solutions rather than principally on problems and barriers. But, what are opportunities in this arcane field of environmental information? What will it take to make the changes we desperately seek so that we can have access to timely, accurate, and useful information, particularly at the policy level? Surely it will take changes in institutions, science and technology, and in policies to meet these needs? But, what kinds of changes and how can they be brought about? And, will it take more foreign assistance to break through these barriers in most developing countries?
Rosina Wiltshire does not address this issue directly. Instead she raises an entirely new problem, which if she is right, makes most of our strategies for improving environmental data completely off target. She goes beyond the current concern for gathering more gender-specific information to say that we, 'need to redirect the information flows specifically targeting women as the critical end users.' Her principal thesis is that women are the first line users of natural resources (particularly renewable resources), the first line defense against environmental pollution (particularly household and community pollution), and therefore information should be targeted to meet their needs. Women are economic producers, household managers, child rearers, food producers and distributors, and health care givers.
Do women have the information they need to make these tasks more productive, more conserving, and less onerous? The simple answer is no, at least not official information. Not only do women not have the information they need to do their jobs, many government projects including those sponsored by international donors, don't even recognize that women are essential participants in the projects. A review of 22 social forestry projects appraised by the World Bank from 1984 to 1987 found that only one explicitly mentioned women as project beneficiaries. Yet, in a detailed review of treegrowing projects in Nepal, many of which had failed, it was found that men had been given responsibility for tending nurseries and caring for seedlings, while women, who are traditionally responsible for watering trees, were excluded.
Rosina's approach to this problem is to strengthen the non-governmental organizations role in development. She believes these organizations are more effective at communicating environmentally useful information to local leaders than government. But, this won't be