Technology Transfer - Technology Exchange

Article 4.5 of the Convention urges developed countries to undertake practical steps to promote, facilitate and finance the transfer of, or access to, environmentally sound technologies and know-how to developing countries in order to enable them to adopt and to mitigate climate change. Developed countries are called upon to support the development and enhancement of endogenous capacities and technologies.

In order to help countries to conduct a technology needs assessment (TNA), there are different guidebooks or guiding principles available, among others published by UNDP/GEF or UNEP. None of them is addressing gender differentiated needs properly (if at all).

Gender Dimension

Needs of women and men regarding technologies often differ, their preferences and priorities are closely related to their different roles in society. Moreover, women often lack of access to technologies as well as to information and training about appropriate technologies and their use. Their voices as regards technology needs are very rarely heard.

Studies in various regions of the world show, that women’s risk perception is much higher than those of males. Thus, women are more strongly rejecting risky technologies, such as nuclear energy, genetically modified organisms, and also large dams for hydro power which might impact the environment and local communities negatively.

Technology transfer often implies a one-way-transfer from industrialized countries to so-called developing countries. Although women have a broad body of knowledge, capacities and experiences in the use of technologies which are appropriate for their particular situations, this knowledge is often neither recognized nor relied upon. Technology exchange should therefore not be used as a (new) term only, but for a new strategy of co-operation.

Recommendations

Although UNDP requests the users of the manual Conducting a Technology Needs Assessment for Climate Change to "think of TNA as an approach by which sustainable development, climate change technologies, and opportunities are integrated" there is no reference to women as a group which might have particular needs nor to gender aspects of technologies or to impacts of technology transfer on gender relations. An update of the manual was decided at COP13 in Bali, this update should include a gender perspective and should ask for gender differentiated data related to different technology needs of fdifferent stakeholders, how they are reflected and prioritized and how they contribute to both, the guiding principles of sustainable development and the Convention.

All technologies transferred under the protocols of the UNFCCC must at the very least ensure that no harm is caused to either environment or the human communities to whom such technology is transferred. No technology that might reasonably be considered high risk should be permitted to be transferred under this process. Human rights and environmental conservation, in the light of gender equity, will be the minimum standards to be applied to all technology transfers.

Because technology transfer mostly doesn’t take into account small scale requirements, a gender sensitive assessment of technology needs is important in order to meet women’s needs. Co-benefits of such assessments and their implementation are in the field of household productivity and alleviation of labour – and thereby improving women’s education and income generating activities.