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All Protocol Observed
Many thank you to UNDP and UN Women
for the invitation to South Centre to
participate in this very important global
conference on women and Social
Inclusion: From Beijing to Post 2015.
Muchas Gracias for the wonderful
welcome and hospitality by the Argentina
government.
Thus far it has been a very rich and
enlightening experience, especially
learning of the Latin American Experiences
What is South Centre?
• Intergovernmental Independent Think-Tank for Developing Countries.
• Created in 1995. Has grown out of the work and experience of the South
Commission.
• Eminent Personalities: Julius Nyerere (President of Tanzania), Manmohan
Singh (Prime Minister of India), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (U.N. Secretary General,
Luis Fernando Jaramillo, Vice-President of Colombia).
• 51 Member States from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
• Current Chairperson: Mr. Benjamin Mkapa (President of Tanzania).
• Board Members: Charles Soludo (Nigeria), Omar El Arini (Egypt), Rubens
Ricupero (Brazil), Ransford Smith (Jamaica), Yang Wenchang (China), Victoria
Tauli-Corpuz (Philippines)
•Executive Director: Martin Khor (Malaysia)
Updated: 23/01/08
Working for whom?
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Member States and other developing countries
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Regional and thematic groupings of developing countries in various
international forums:
G-77, LDCs, G-33, ACP, African Union, SADC,COMESA, MERCOSUR,
SIDS and others.
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Key Audience:
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Policymakers in the Capitals (Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs…..)
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Diplomatic representations in Geneva, New York and Brussels
UN and other multilateral development agencies
Academic and research institutions
NGOs and civil society
Private sector
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Gender and Climate
Change
Implications of the response to
Climate change for women’s
poverty and inclusion in post 2015
Mariama Williams
South Centre
Outline
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I. Gender and Climate change: Making the
Linkages
II. Towards Gender sensitive global and
National Climate Change Policy
Climate Change/Climate change policy and
women’s empowerment and inclusion in
the post 2015
I. Climate change and Gender: Making
the Linkages
Gender differentiated impacts of
extreme weather events etc.
 Gender and climate change
Adaptation
 Gender and Climate change
Mitigation
 Gender and climate related
technology Development and transfer
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Gender differentiated Impacts
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Extreme weather events, rising sea levels,
threats to water and food production, all
have differential impacts on the lives of
women and men. Women and men have
different capabilities, opportunities and
access to resources to facilitate the
adaptation to changing climate which
adversely impacts the availability of food,
fuel and water.
Gender differentiated Impacts 2
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Women, due to historical discrimination
and biases in both the formal and informal
labour markets as well as cultural and
social practices, have less assets, income
and savings to deal with the loss and
damages from extreme weather events.
Climate change-related events that impact
water resource to communities place
increasing burden on women’s care and
social reproduction work.
Gender differentiated Impacts 3
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The IPCC’s AR4 notes that climate change
is likely to directly impact children and
pregnant women because they are
particularly susceptible to vector and
water-borne diseases. WHO argues that
pregnant women are more susceptible and
die from malaria and water-borne diseases
than the general population.
Gender differentiated Impacts 4
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Women, as a group, relative to men, as a
group, have different possibilities for
recovering from frequent and intensive
periods of droughts, floods and
hurricanes.
Women and children die
disproportionately more than men from
extreme weather events such as floods,
hurricanes and storms (Neumayer and
Plumper, 2007).
Gender differentiated Impacts 5
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In some countries, the effects of climate
change also place women and girls at
greater risks for bodily injury, rape and
harassment when they must travel further
and further away from home to secure
household drinking water, fuel and food
Climate change and its interlinkages to SDGs and FfD
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It is extremely important to recognise that
climate change and policies to address it
inter-relate to other areas that are critical
for women’s empowerment and social
inclusion: Fiscal policy, trade, agri/food
security, social protection and the SDGs
generally
Climate change is goal 13 of SDG and
climate finance has implication for ODA
Adaptation
1) increase resilience; 2) decrease impacts of
disasters 3) coping and relief to experience when
damage occurs.
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Women are dynamic actors in projects and
programmes particularly related to adaptation,
such as crop and livestock selection, crop
shifting and soil preservation, the use of
traditional water harvesting techniques and the
efficient use of water.
Adaptation
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Women, as the managers of household
energy and water supplies, must adapt to
the changing climate conditions.
Women, as farmers and major producers
of food, must also adapt production and
growing practices that ensure food
security, in spite of climate change.
Yet women in communities continue to
have in adequate decision-making with
regard to adaptation decision-making at
local, sector, national, regional and
international local levels
Mitigation
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Focus: create incentives for consumers and
producers to reduce GHG emissions/ encourage
transition to low carbon, clean and efficient
energy development and the enhancement of
both natural and man-made greenhouse gas
sinks.
While the former focuses on industrial production, energy generation and end use energy
intensive sectors such as transportation, the
latter revolves around a large number of
activities such as agricultural production,
deforestation, land-use changes that are
important for the lives and livelihoods of women
and men in quite distinct ways.
Mitigation 2
Mitigation within the context of sustainable development
can help to promote gender equity and women’s
empowerment by addressing at least four issues:
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1) women’s and men’s energy needs and uses;
2) women’s and men’s employment and
entrepreneurship—though there are potential
challenges and constraints in the agriculture,
energy and power sectors; 3) incorporating
women’s and men’s traditional knowledge and
practices into mitigation strategies and policy
frameworks;
4) paying focused attention on ensuring gender
Mitigation 3
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Some mitigation actions, such as the
provision of clean and modern energy
services, save women’s and men’s time
and lives and promote better health.
Other mitigation actions such as those
implemented to affect land use, and landuse change can shift the balance of
economic and social resource distribution
between women and men and among
different communities and hence can
exacerbate inequality.
Technology and Gender
In the area of technology women play
important role in cost effective Soft
technology (i.e., Crop rotation patterns)
and Hard Technology (i.e. Drought resistant
crop varieties, Seawalls and irrigation
techniques).
Technology & Gender
“African women are particularly known to possess
indigenous knowledge which helps to maintain
household food security, particularly in times of drought
and famine. They often rely on indigenous plants that
are more tolerant to droughts and pests, providing a
reserve for extended periods of economic hardship. In
southern Sudan, for example, women are directly
responsible for the selection of all sorghum seeds saved
for planting each year. They preserve a spread of
varieties of seeds that will ensure resistance to the range
of conditions that may arise in any given growing
season.”
Source: IPCC WGII Cross Sectoral Studies Chapter.
Climate Finance
Equal access to critical financial mechanism is both
necessary and important for women’s empowerment and
for sustainable climate change actions in the long run.
Otherwise, climate change remediable and strategic actions
will not be sustainable.
 Therefore climate change financing, in as much as it
seeks to promote global benefits, must also seek to
ensure benefits to women and men in the formal,
informal and household sectors of the economy.
 It is important that climate change financing focuses as
well on transforming and upgrading the livelihoods of
women and men on the ground in order to engender the
necessary behavioural, institutional and policy changes
that are important for securing climate change
objectives.
II. Towards Gender sensitive global
and National Climate Change Policy
Global Climate policy framework:
UNFCCC:
Pillars: Adaptation, Mitigation,
Tech & Finance plus capacity
 Gender
Decision 2012
 The Lima Work Programme 2015
 Gender sensitisation of the Green
Climate Fund etc.
Climate Change POLICY
The architecture and governance framework of
climate change:
 UNFCCC
 OPERATIONAL PILLARS AND THEMES
ADAPTATION & Loss and Damage
MITIGATION: CDM, REDD
FINANCE: GEF, Green climate Fund etc.
TECHNOLOGY
CAPACITY BUILDING
COMMUNICATION: EDUCATION & OUTREACH
GENDER Decisions 23/CP.18 /Lima work program on
gender and climate change, Gender Policy & Action Plan
of the Green Climate fund
GENDER DECISION
The COP adopted a goal of gender balance
in bodies established pursuant to the
Convention….in order to improve
women’s participation and inform more
effective climate change policy that
addresses the needs of women and men
equally
The Lima Work Programme on
Gender
A two-year work programme for promoting
gender balance and achieving genderresponsive climate policy, developed for the
purpose of guiding the effective
participation of women in the bodies
established under the Convention,
Elements of the LWPG
Strengthen the existing work on gender
balance in the thematic priority areas
(participation & capacity building,
adaptation, Mitigation, TD&T)
In-session workshops on Mitigation & TD&T
(June 2015) and adaptation and capacity
building (2016)
Hiring of senior gender focal point in the
UNFCCC secretariat
Fund-wide Gender-sensitization
of the Green Climate Fund
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Status of resource mobilized: $10.2 B
(over 4 years); 50:50 Adaptation &
Mitigation.5 Implementing entities
approved; Readiness in process.
As of May Gender Policy & Gender Action
Planned approved
Gender advocates working with secretariat
to ensure gender indicators in the
performance measurement Framework of
the fund
Elements of GCF Gender Policy
and Gender Action Plan
The Gender Policy has six principles:
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Three-fold commitment (understand gender and climate
change issues; adopt tools and method to promote
gender equality and reduce gender disparity in climate
funding: and measure the outcomes and impact of GCF
activities on women’s and men’s resilience to climate
change
Comprehensive scope and coverage: ALL climate funding
activities
Accountability of ALL entities that carries out the GCF
mission for gender results; and redress mechanism for
gender related compliance and grievances
GCF GS elements2
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Country Ownership: working through NDAs and focal
points –in alignment with national gender policies and
priorities and GCF gender policy.
Competencies: gender balance in ALL funds operations;
secretariat in-house gender expertise at senior staff
level; gender and climate expertise in all committees,
esp. Accreditation Panel, Investment committee, risk
management committed and the PSAG etc. (Readiness
and preparatory support available to NDAs and FPs in
this context)
Resource Allocation of the Fund should contribute to
gender equality and women’s empowerment (including
GCF Gender Action Plan
The Gender Action Plan has six priority areas
 Governance and institutional structure:
 Operational guidelines: guidelines, including
socio economic and gender assessments/ESS…
 Capacity building: gender training for board and
staff
 Outputs, outcomes, impacts and ‘paradigmshifting objectives for monitoring, reporting and
evaluation
 Resource allocation and budgeting
 Knowledge generation and communications
III. Climate Change/Climate
change policy and women’s
empowerment and inclusion in
the post 2015
 Promoting
gender equity based
analysis in agreements and in
financing institutions
 The
Paris 2015 agreement
CC and Women’s Empowerment
and Inclusion post 2015
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There is a need to rebalance priorities and
to accelerate both adaptation and
mitigation programmes and projects in
order to meet the immediate and medium
term needs of women, men and children
in communities while at the same time
making the transition to low-carbon
development pathways.
Change/Climate change policy and
women’s empowerment and inclusion
in the post 2015
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As the next frontier in climate policy is
pursued beyond 2015, there is much work
to be done elaborating the vulnerability
and risks that men and wom-en face in
developing countries and ensuring that
policy frameworks and instruments more
fully integrate gender and women
empowerment perspectives.
Climate change policy and women’s
empowerment and inclusion in the post
2015
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In this context, there will be need for
careful calibration between adaptation and
mitigation policies and outcomes.
Greater involvement of women in the
selection, design, production and
implementation of climate proofing
projects undertaken in their communities
and localities; ensure that climate
enhanced marketing and storage facilities
Climate change policy and women’s
empowerment and inclusion in the post 2015
are accessible to women at the time of day
that is appropriate for women and with the
needed complementary services such as
transportation.
These undertaking can have very dynamic
results for improving the long term adaptive
capacity of the sector (i.e., agriculture, water
supply) and the community as a whole. Project
reviewers, sponsors and funders should be
trained to evaluate project documents from
these gender sensitive lens.
The trajectory towards gender sensitive and
gender equitable climate governance policy,
including adaptation and mitigation policy,
involves developing activities around at least four
important pillars:
1) improving women ‘s role in climate
governance, through gender balance in
representation and improved capacity building for
climate negotiations for women;
2) programs and training for enhancing the
skill set of women to undertake adaptation and
mitigation and assessments;
3) timely and strategic interventions around
climate protection and building resilience
and 4) ensuring adequate climate finance,
that is publicly sourced, non-debt creating
and easily accessible, flows to developing
countries; and
4) ensuring gender equity in the flow of
this finance.
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Drawing on the existing frameworks,
enhancing their strong points and building
in processes and mechanism to mitigating
weaker aspects can provide significant
leverage points toward gender sensitizing
the current climate change financing
architecture.
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Thank You!
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williams@southcentre.int