Women are underrepresented in leadership and technical roles in the bamboo industry. Improved policies, training, and workplace safety can help close this gap.
Bamboo, a fast growing and highly resilient grass, can be processed into food, fuel, utensils, and even a six-story building. It is increasingly recognized as a nature-based solution—an approach that works with natural systems, such as forests, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems, to address development challenges—offering economic, environmental, and social benefits.
For instance, the People’s Republic of China has advanced its “Bamboo as a substitute for plastics” program since 2023. With Asia and the Pacific, especially the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, and India as key growth hubs, the global bamboo industry value is projected to reach $20.3 billion by 2034.
Women form the backbone of the bamboo industry, comprising 66% of bamboo industry workers in Bangladesh and 91.67% of weaving activities in India, for instance.
However, their roles remain largely invisible in policies and decision-making, in part because sex-disaggregated data on women’s participation in bamboo production, processing and trade are scarce. This invisibility masks critical issues that should be understood and addressed if the bamboo sector is to achieve its full potential.
Bamboo is primarily managed through public institutions and community bodies, meaning access, use, and benefits are collectively determined. However, women, despite their role in production and processing—remain excluded from decision-making and equitable benefits.
Community-based forest programs in Asia and the Pacific show that shared management can include everyone, but this is not yet common practice.
In Indonesia, for instance, under the Social Forestry Program, which redistributes forest management rights to local communities, women need greater representation in forest management bodies.
While in Nepal, its globally recognized Community Forestry Program has integrated women into governance and benefit sharing arrangements, contributing to improvements in forest cover and enabling communities to market forest products, including bamboo, for income generation.
The Forest Chief System in the People’s Republic of China offers another promising approach, with a growing number of women engaged as civil forest chiefs or rangers recruited from local households, including low-income ones. These examples highlight both the gaps and the potential.
In India women account for 70% of the bamboo handicraft workers but greater representation is needed in technical and managerial roles such as marketing and research and development.
This gap is likely caused by limited access to education and training, and a lack of labor policies that include inclusive policies and systematic and structured measures to move women up into higher value positions and leadership roles.
As the bamboo industry modernizes, incorporating more women is as urgent as preparing workers for technological evolution. In Anji County, renowned for its bamboo industry, factories are already using artificial intelligence to improve efficiency.
Automation and AI applications will displace less technical roles, many of which are currently dominated by women. For example, in a factory in Anji County, the use of computer vision technology to distinguish defective products has reduced the number of staff required from eight to two in a single assembly line, a stunning 75% drop of the labor force.
Women form the backbone of the bamboo industry.
Alongside these technological changes, workplace safety remains a pressing concern. Bamboo industry workers, particularly women concentrated in production lines, face hazardous conditions such as extreme heat, high noise levels, dust exposure, and machine-related accidents.
For safe and equitable modernization, national occupational safety and health guidelines should include provisions tailored to women’s needs, such as properly fitted protective gear; cooling shelters and bathroom areas; rest break arrangements and flexible work schedules, as well as training and awareness programs.
To ensure that the bamboo industry treats women fairly in Asia and beyond, the following policy considerations are needed:
Strengthen governance. Ensure women’s representation in forest and bamboo management bodies at all levels. Complement this with training, resources, and institutional support for women to participate meaningfully in decision-making.
Enhance sex-disaggregated data and evidence. Investing in data and research is essential to inform policy, raise awareness and engage governments, industry and communities alike in addressing gaps in women’s participation.
Promote women’s advancement along the value chain. Create incentives for employers to diversify recruitment into technical, managerial, and research and development roles. Expand women’s access to reskilling and upskilling, and provide finance, incubation, and market access to help women-owned enterprises move into higher-value bamboo products and services.
Prepare for workforce transition and ensure that automation does not further marginalize women. Conduct assessments of automation risks, develop tailored transition plans, and provide reskilling for women to shift into new roles, while creating alternative livelihoods where displacement is hard to avoid.
Improve workplace safety and health standards. Update and rigorously monitor implementation of national occupational safety guidelines with provisions responsive to women’s needs.
Amid these transitions and advancements, multilateral development banks can play a catalytic role. Through their loan operations, they can back bamboo investments that link women’s participation with economic development—for instance, by financing policy innovation, inclusive enterprises, training programs, and safer workplaces.
Investing in women’s leadership, skills, and safety in the bamboo industry is essential to a long-term strategy to revitalize, innovate and sustain the bamboo Industry.
Source: blogs.adb.org
