News from GenderCC

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 UNFCCC

Climate 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.
Within the women and gender constituency, particular attention was paid to the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Plan for Enhanced Action (ADP). At the inaugural meeting Yvette Abrahams from GenderCC South Africa made an intervention on behalf of the constituency, emphasizing the necessity for a stronger commitment to gender equality. The constituency called for a workshop on gender justice which should be run as part of ADP to underline the link of gender justice and climate change. 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.  
The constituency as a whole - in cooperation with GGCA - has begun preparations for Doha, including plans for a larger event dealing with gender, which will hopefully be co-hosted by the UNFCCC secretariat.

Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community

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 Change

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.

• Brot für die Welt (2012): Women Farmers Adapting to Climate Change. This paper provides four examples from three continents of women’s use of local knowledge in climate change adaptation. It aims to show that the local knowledge of women is valuable and useful for the adaptation of smallholder agriculture to climate change.

• genanet (2012): Discussion Paper Green Economy: Gender_just. A feminist perspective on Green Economy. Additonal backgroups papers are available: One details the relationship between care economy and green economy, and the other one focus on the link between consumption, gender and green economy. Released by the German focal point for Gender, Environment, Sustainability (genanet), they are part of a project aiming to involve women and women's organisations in the discussions about Green Economy. The papers are available at genanet's green economy website.

• Harcourt, Wendy (2012): Women Reclaiming Sustainable Livelihoods: Spaces Lost, Spaces Gained. In light of Rio+20, this book boldly reclaims the concept of sustainable livelihoods for women. Authors from 10 different countries show how women engage in policy decision on climate change and consumptions, managing solidarity economies, farming, micro credit, value chains, and strategies in post-conflict contexts.

• Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America (2012): Think Pieces on Gender Equity and Sustainable Development. This series of 11 think pieces covers topics such as access to resources such as energy, land or water, the care economy as well as women as consumers and gender implication of climate change responses.

• Tacoli, Cecilia (2012): Urbanization, gender and urban poverty: paid work and unpaid carework in the cities. This gendered perspective of urban poverty reveals the significance of non-income dimensions such as time poverty; and highlights fundamental issues of equality and social justice by showing women’s unequal position in the urban labour market, their limited ability to secure assets independently from male relatives and their greater exposure to violence.

Calendar of Events

30 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.