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GenderCC Newsletter

April 2021

Dear readers,

 

Our first newsletter of the year shares exciting news from our members, various opportunities for researchers and specialists, and much more

GenderCC participated in the global climate strike on March 19th, contributing to an open-air painting in Berlin on our vision for a better future. We believe that a better future is possible, and that climate and gender justice must be a part of it! We cannot accept vague and empty promises for far off dates that are much too late. We do not need meaningless goals for 2050 or net-zero targets full of loopholes, but concrete and immediate action in-line with science. The GenderCC team and partners are raising their voices for gender issues and stress that all genders must be part of the solution-processes!

This edition will also feature updates from the GenderCC members. UN House Scotland will launch a podcast series on gender and climate justice. The podcast called ‘’Connecting Women's Voices on Climate Justice: Perspectives from Scotland and Around the World’’ will bring together women activists to dialogue on shared strategies and common goals for climate action ahead of a roundtable event at COP26.  SENCAB organised workshops with local women on climate challenges in the Wassa Akropong community within the western region of Ghana on ``Gender Dimensions – Biodiversity; Climate Change and Health’’.

We hope you enjoy this issue!

 

Kind regards,

the GenderCC Secretariat team

 

Content

News from GenderCC

 

  • Not without us! Climate justice and gender justice in international climate politics

 

Gender @ UNFCCC

 

Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community

 

  • Women and Gender Constituency´s video on ambitious feminist climate action 
  • GenderCC at the global climate strike 
  • Podcast series on gender and climate justice from UN House Scotland
  • SENCAB sensitisation sessions with local women on climate challenges "GENDER DIMENSIONS - BIODIVERSITY; CILIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH"

 

News on Gender and Climate Change

  • Call for applications for a new programme of Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA)

 

 

 

 

 

Who is Who at GenderCC

  • Our new Student Assistant
  • Isadora and Vera leave GenderCC

 

Publications

 

  • A Gendered Lens: Mainstreaming Gender into South Africa’s Climate Change Response by Jennifer Smout et al.
  • Racism and Climate (In)Justice: How Racism and Colonialism shape the Climate Crisis and Climate Action by Olumide Abimbola, Joshua Kwesi Aikins, Tselane Makhesi-Wilkinson and Erin Roberts
  • Unlearning: From Degrowth to Decolonization by Jamie Tyberg
  • Masculinities and hydropower in India: a feminist political ecology perspective by Gitta Shrestha, Deepa Joshi and Floriane Clement

Calendar of events

 

Imprint

 

 

 

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News from GenderCC

Not without us! Climate justice and gender justice in international climate politics

We enter the 5th year of the project with new team members! Aditi, from GenderCC in Germany, will join the project from April on, replacing Isadora. We also welcome Babitha, from Kerala in India, who will be taking over the work previously done by Shradha. We say bye, thanks and wish all the best to the future endeavours of Isadora and Shradha. Keep tuned on our medium and webpage to get updates on our 2021 activities and how to get involved.

Earlier this month, we held an online film screening event, organized by LIFE in the scope of the March celebrations for international women’s day in Berlin. We showed the documentaries produced in 2019 by the project. On March 8th, the team launched a postcard series portraying the feminist climate activists who are part of the project and their networks. The series is published through GenderCC and partners’ social media during the month of March, to mark the celebration of women’s struggles, power and diversity in the climate justice movement worldwide.

Check out the series here illustrated by Ellena Ekarahendy. Thanks to the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung for the support.

Gender @ UNFCCC

The UNFCCC gender team is inviting interested stakeholders working with gender and climate to share with them strategic objectives, initiatives, events, workshops or other activities that relate to the gender and climate change nexus. The input can be voluntarily given through the online form . The gender team is also still accepting entries for the virtual market place that aims to showcase the work on gender and climate change, to support regional collaboration, cooperation and knowledge exchange by bringing actors together. 

The second year of implementation of the enhanced Lima work programme on gender and its gender action plan (GAP) will be focused on workshops, capacity building initiatives, webinars, support for building the skills and capacities of National Gender and Climate Change Focal Points (NGCCFPs), among other activities. There are open calls for submissions on two activities of the GAP (A4 and D5) for interested stakeholder, Parties and observers to contribute. To get all updates on the activities under the gender action plan, subscribe to the UNFCCC gender newsletter here 

 

 

Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community

Women and Gender Constituency´s video on ambitious feminist climate action

The Women and Gender Constituency launched a video with its global members showing what they mean by ambitious feminist climate action. Watch it here. The WGC is also working on position papers towards COP26, aligning demands and key policy priorities for advocating prior and during the conference (which is still not confirmed to take place this year). Keep track of the WGC activities through their webpage

 

GenderCC at the global climate strike

During the global climate strike on March 19th, GenderCC participated in a series of paintings at the Oberbaumbrücke in Berlin, Germany, that portrayed a vision for a better world. Sarah from GenderCC was interviewed and the painting, as well as the interview, can be watched on the Fridays For Future live stream which is available here.

 

Podcast series on gender and climate justice from UN House Scotland

UN House Scotland a volunteer-run and women-led organisation with a ten-year track record in developing civil society partnerships and strengthening public engagement in the goals and values of the UN, is launching a podcast series on gender and climate justice. The series, Connecting Women's Voices on Climate Justice: Perspectives from Scotland and Around the World will bring together women activists to dialogue on shared strategies and common goals for climate action ahead of a roundtable event at COP26.

‘’Between April and October 2021, we will record and edit monthly podcast episodes on just transition, food sovereignty, sustainable cities, youth climate strikes and more. In this year of Scotland's prominence on the global stage for climate action, we invite you to join us in conversation - if you would like to be featured or learn more about our podcast series or our work more broadly, please contact Catriona at climate.justice@unhscotland.org.uk."

 

 

SENCAB sensitisation sessions with local women on climate challenges ``GENDER DIMENSIONS - BIODIVERSITY; CILIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH’’

SENCAB has in recent times laid focus on addressing climate change challenges and improving structures for climate resilience and management. In the Wassa Akropong community within the western region of Ghana, initiatives to address recognition and action possibilities towards meeting challenges of natural resource depletion have been addressed. Most recently, contamination and destruction of natural resources has been focused on by the SENCAB team, together with the Municipal Assembly and community multiplicators as stakeholders in the process of identifying, through sensitization sessions, the establishment of a multiplicator network towards action on climate change issues, based on community challenges, as gold mining community. Recent sessions have been held in the Suhyenso community within the Wassa Akropong municipality, on gender and climate management, with initial programmes together with women entrepreneurs. The goals of sensitisation programmes particularly within the Suhyena community executed successfully, achieved the aim of sensitizing the pilot communities towards challenge recognition, supporting initiation of ideas towards natural climate change, resilience strategies for dry land areas, as well as for the conservation of biodiversity.

News on Gender and Climate Change

Call for applications for a new programme of Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA)

The Adaptation Fund has launched a new programme which will foster innovation of adaptation practices in vulnerable countries. UNEP-CTCN and UNDP are administrating the grants.  In the UNEP-CTCN programme, the second call for submission of applications is now open until 30 April 2021. More details can be found here

Who is Who at GenderCC

Introducing the new student assistant

GenderCC welcomes Zhyldyz Imanalieva as our new student assistant. Zhyldyz is currently studying towards her Master´s Degree in European Studies at the European University of Flensburg. Previously she studied International Relations in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. Her interests include the EU and Central Asian politics, migration issues, issues of women rights and climate justice. 

 

 

Isadora and Vera leave GenderCC

After 2,5 years working with GenderCC, Isadora says goodbye to the team. She will start a research fellowship with the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, where she will keep working on the topics of gender and climate justice globally.

Vera leaves GenderCC to finish her studies abroad.  She is currently researching transnational climate litigation yet will continue to work on gender justice and climate change issues as a freelance writer.

Publications

A Gendered Lens: Mainstreaming Gender into South Africa’s Climate Change Response by Jennifer Smout et al.

It has increasingly been acknowledged that climate change has differentiated impacts on women and men, and on local and indigenous peoples. Women, especially poor women, are one of the groups most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and least likely to have the resources to cope with them. Because women are one of the most vulnerable groups, it’s essential that they are equally represented and equal participants and agents of change in climate change solution development – and that this is reflected in South Africa’s legislation and policy framework. Through Action 24 – Active Citizens of Responsive Legislatures, we have produced a research report to explore just that.’’ Read more here.   

Racism and Climate (In)Justice: How Racism and Colonialism shape the Climate Crisis and Climate Action by Olumide Abimbola, Joshua Kwesi Aikins, Tselane Makhesi-Wilkinson and Erin Roberts

“How have racism and colonialism contributed to creating the climate crisis; how have they shaped the response to it; and why is the crisis hitting Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPoC) the hardest? The framing paper addresses these questions through a broad framing of the complex historical and empirical realities that show that colonialism and racism have played an integral part in shaping, and continue to shape, climate change and climate policy to this day. The paper analyses the ways in which international climate governance continues to be steered by countries in the Global North – countries that fail to acknowledge their historical climate and development debts”. Read more here.

Unlearning: From Degrowth to Decolonization by Jamie Tyberg

“Degrowth is the unlearning formula consisting of care, autonomy, and sufficiency. One that is essential for understanding that the end goal for degrowthers isn’t degrowth. Because it isn’t, decolonization is.” Read more here.

Masculinities and hydropower in India: a feminist political ecology perspective by Gitta Shrestha, Deepa Joshi and Floriane Clement

"Mainstreaming gender in water governance through “how to do gender” toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender.’’ Read more here

Calendar of Events

Global Just Recovery Gathering   – 09-11 April. 

From the Ground Up: Take Action Now!  – 22-25 April