Environmental Management and Protection Network (EMPRONET) now Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE) was founded in 2004. Touched by the realities on ground, which revealed that grassroots women’s rights, roles, responsibilities and efforts are overlooked in the drive for environmental sustainability; the work became centred on engaging grassroots women in natural resource stewarding and peacemaking. We realized that every environmental challenge we had interest in, whether it was water scarcity, access to clean cooking energy, or land rights, always took us back to the doorstep of women. Yet, they don’t have a say in how they can secure these resources. They are therefore more affected by environmental, climate, and economic crisis and also the ones best positioned to drive solutions.

It is common for women to do the entire farm work, and yet, they are denied the right to own land. Women are also the ones who source for water, but they do not have a say when interventions for safe water points are planned. They spend hours every day searching for firewood, are exposed to toxic fumes when cooking, and still they are barely considered when clean cooking stoves are designed and brought to the community. Who better should be at the forefront of designing these stoves than the women who are going to use them? Who better should make decisions on water management than the women who are responsible for providing water to the entire family?

In 2009, EMPRONET transited to Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), a legally registered nonprofit organization that advances grassroots women’s representation, active participation, and leadership in natural resource governance, climate resiliency and peacebuilding.