and community rights holders (ejidatarias and comuneras<sup>1</sup> ) are women. Hence, governmental forest support programs targeting ejidos and communities mainly benefit men.

Myriad structural barriers limit women’s involvement in forest sector programs. These institutional, legal, and economic barriers include longer working hours, poor public infrastructure to travel to submit official documents, weaker social status, poverty, lack of land tenure, and differences in health and educational attainment as compared to men (World Bank, 2018). Although these have been identified in previous research, there is incomplete evidence on the social and psychological aspects associated with gender differences in participation. Integrating an analysis with a behavioral sciences lens can help cover this knowledge gap.

In recent years, behavioral sciences have provided a complementary perspective to explain public policy challenges beyond institutional, legal, and economic barriers. Behavioral barriers—often unconscious and driven by biases, social norms, and mental models—are now increasingly taken into consideration in the design and implementation of public programs (Sanders, Snijders & Hallsworth, 2018; Shafir, 2013; World Bank, 2014). Behavioral science provides insights to design programs addressing how decision-making is influenced by mental shortcuts (i.e., thinking automatically), psychological biases, and mental models (i.e., predefined views and interpretation of ourselves and the world around us).

This paper presents the results of a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) that tested additions to an outreach strategy of a call for proposals to fund Natural Resource Management (NRM) initiatives in Mexico, particularly using simplified information, expansion of communication channels and messages informed by behavioral sciences. The intervention was designed to encourage women to engage in these activities, helping understand further whether communication strategies that address behavioral barriers can increase their engagement.

# **Evaluation design**

## _2.1 Policy context_

In order to test strategies to encourage women to apply for NRM programs’ funding, this study took advantage of a call for proposals for NRM activities in Mexico that was funded by a World Bank (WB) project. The project had a focus on funding sustainable productive activities in forest landscapes proposed by indigenous people to improve community livelihoods, increase community participation, and support local climate change action. This specific call for proposals aimed to increase women’s participation in NRM activities by addressing a series of structural barriers that commonly prevented women from being able to apply to forest sector programs. For example, removing the land ownership requirement and having a two-phase process, requiring only a short project description for the first phase with fewer technical and methodological details

> 1 Agrarian units ( _Nucleos agrarios_ ) can be _comunidades_ or _ejidos_ . _Comunidades_ are long-standing rural population centers with formal ownership of their traditional or customary lands. _Ejido_ refers to a portion of land titled to a rural population nucleus that was formed more recently or relocated from another area. Community members with full ownership rights are legally recognized as ejidatarios or comuneros. Both types of community groups are governed by a similar structure. _Avecindados_ refers to people who live in the territory without being ejidatarios or comuneros.

3