Women, Decision Making and Sustainability: Exploring the Experience of the Badi Foundation in Rural China

This Report follows the experience of the Badi Foundation, a nonprofit organization operating in rural China, in its efforts to release women's potential to effect change in their communities. Numerous international conferences and treaties have recognized that female decision making is essential to achieve global environmental change and sustainable development. Recent scholarship recognizes that women are oftoverlooked sources for knowledge, skills, and leadership. Project-based efforts to empower and encourage women to participate in problem solving and other decision making in their communities have produced positive results.

Through the Badi Foundation's Environmental Action Program (EAP), rural women gain the skills they need to become leaders in their communities. The EAP participants report that they can have an important and transformative role in their communities, and have brought about significant changes in their own lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. This is a promising model for encouraging the women to take part in community and familial decision making, which is not only beneficial for the individual women, but for their families and their communities as well.