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July 2012Dear reader,  |
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Content
Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community
News on Gender and Climate Change
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News from GenderCCGenderCC briefing paper on UNFCCC and agriculture Agriculture is receiving increasing attention within the UNFCCC, with growing recognition of the importance of small holder farmers for food security and also the role of women in agriculture. However, gender aspects continue to be neglected in the policy making, despite the fact that climate change affects men and women differently, especially in relation to agriculture.
This GenderCC briefing paper provides an outline of agriculture in the UNFCCC process, providing a sketch of the negotiations on an agricultural work programme and especially the results of the last Conference of the Parties in Durban. It outlines and summarizes the positions of different parties, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and gives an overview of selected literature that deals with gender issues in this field.
To download the paper, click here. News from the GenderCC Secretariat At the beginning of June, the GenderCC Secretariat had the pleasure of welcoming a new intern – Clariste Nzolla from Cameroon.
Clariste has a Master in Fundamental Private Law in Ngaoundere and Yaoundé Universities Cameroun. She has spent much of her professional life working with civil society in order to improve living conditions for women. She is today Executive Secretary at FEPED (Women for Environment and Development) and works part-time as a legal advisor. Currently, she is completing an international program called ILT (International Leadership for Sustainability Management). The program is offered by the German government in order to reinforce links of cooperation with developing countries. Through the ILT Program, Clariste has broadened her knowledge of Sustainable Development.
A central part of the ILT-program is the development of a transfer project. Clariste’s project aims to disseminate improved stoves in Cameroon as an efficient strategy for reducing firewood consumption, one of the main cause of deforestation in her home town Yaoundé. Clariste wants to act as a Change Agent and to develop an innovative strategy to save energy in collaboration with JVE (Young Volunteer for Environment), an NGO that manufactures stoves. This strategy involves bringing together a group of 20 motivated women who agree to involved themselves in a weekly saving of CFA 350 (about 0,50 euro) each. The money would be then collected to purchase an improved stove that costs 7000 Fcfa and to give it to one woman per week so that after 20 weeks each of the members will have received one, following a rotation system.
From June to October, Clariste will be working as an intern at Gender CC to gain more experience in project management. She is very interested in introducing more gender policies within her organization in Cameroon, which mainly focuses on water management, education and health. Gender @ the UNFCCCClimate Change Conference (SB 36), Bonn May 2012 The climate negotiations in Bonn proved to be hard going this time around: it took almost two weeks of deliberation to finalise the negotiating agenda for the Durban Platform, hailed a 'breakthrough' after the last Conference of the Parties in Durban, and it wasn't until the very last minute that a chair was able to be elected for the Ad Hoc Working Group.
Discussions about article 6 of the convention are related to education, training, awareness rising about climate change, and participation, with the aim of drafting a new work programme. The positions of the women and gender constituency and the youth constituency (YOUNGO) were heard in a joint intervention arguing for two important considerations: finance and participation. Only a reliable funding system can ensure the effective implementation of a work programme. Active public participation of women, the youth and indigenous people is also crucial for the work programme to successfully combat climate change.
Capacity building is an issue in all UNFCCC related bodies and working groups. Speaking on behalf of the women and gender constituency, Svitlana Slesarenok from the Ukraine highlighted in an intervention the need for gender-sensitive capacity building especially in economies in transition. Furthermore, she called for a compulsory reporting of gender sensitive capacity building in the 4th review of the implementation of the framework.
Despite the fact that the negotations are currently proving difficult, the awareness of gender aspects is increasing considerably. Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres invited members of the constituencies to a "Gender Picnic". Apart from being a very lively networking event, it also was an excellent opportunity to communicate the various ideas on how to improve gender recognition in the negotiations, in addition to the inclusion of gender and women references in the text. Christiana asked for ideas on how references can be trickled down to national and local levels and called for the support of NGOs to put pressure on governments to integrate gender.
Yvette Abrahams pointed out that the climate negotiations are a very important framework for grassroots women to demand action from their national government. Others highlighted the need for addressing the role of women and gender in mitigating climate change in industrialised countries. The next step is to 'map' the progress on integrating gender in climate politics and identfy the gaps. These activities are being supported by a gender advisor, who has been working in the Climate Secretariat since spring 2012, funded by Finnland, with the aim of strengthening the gender perspective in the various strains of negotiation. Activities of the Gender and Climate Change CommunityRio+20: women fighting for a gender_just and sustainable economy
The UN conference “Rio+20” is over. Most have agreed that The Future We Want, outlined in the outcome document of the same name, is certainly not the future we need. It might have been possible to shrug one’s shoulders and conclude that the conference made a great deal of noise without achieving anything, were it not for alarming attempts by various governments to disregard the rights of women. Or, on a brighter note, were it not for the countless side events held by civil society organisations, seeking to contribute a feminist perspective on sustainable development.
In addition, UN Women hosted a panel discussion titled, “Mainstreaming Gender in the Rio Conventions: Progress to Date and the Way Forward”, which took place at the Gender Mainstreaming Day in the Rio Conventions Pavilion. Luc Gnacadja (Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification), Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias (Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity), and Christiana Figueres (Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) presented the gaps, core obstacles and their visions for the future.
Together with other German women’s organisations, gender experts and feminist economists, genanet produced a number of discussion and background papers in the lead up to the Rio+20 conference, which are also available in English.
SPC training on Gender and Climate Change The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) held a training session on gender and climate change for Fiji officers from government ministries and NGOs, aimed at strengthening participants' understanding of the gender analysis approach, and enabling them to apply gender analysis in the context of climate change. The training convened from 20-22 June 2012, in Suva, Fiji.
Multi-stakeholder dialogue in Kenya The Kenyan Institute of Environment and Water Management has been demonstrating a commitment to the integration of a gender perspective at policy level.
In June, the Institute of Environment and Water Management in collaboration with the Kenya Climate Change Working Group organized a multi-stakeholder dialogue to facilitate public analysis of the climate change bill from a gender perspective which is headed for its first reading on the floor of parliament.
Other events include a training and an analytical study on gender and climate change in Kenya. To read more, visit the website.
News on Gender and Climate ChangeReport on gender equality and climate change in the European Union The first EU-wide report on climate change and gender equality has been released by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). To read the report, click here.
Gender and mitigation at EU level Ministers of Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) have adopted conclusions on the issue of “Gender equality and the environment: enhanced decision-making, qualifications and competitiveness in the field of climate change mitigation policy in the EU”. To read more, click here.
Submit your film proposals on women and climate change tvebiomovies is looking for creative film proposals which tackle some very contemporary environmental issues. There are 5 categories to choose from, one of which looks at the relationship between women and climate change and the impact that the latter has on the former.
Young and old can enter and filmmaking experience is not necessary. A total of 10 films will be choosen - 2 from each category - and we'll give succsesful finalist $300. The finalist films will be put on YouTube and the film from each category that receives the most views wins $1500. All 10 films will also be shown at the UN COP18 Conference. More information. Publications
Calendar of Events30 Aug - 5 Sep 2012, Bangkok, Thailand: Informal sessions of the AWG. The seventheenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 17) and the third part of the fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA 14) will take place in Bangkok, Thailand from August 30 to September 5, 2012. The official notification for the sessions will be issued in due course on the UNFCCC website.
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