Le Plateforme « GENDER Impact » du CGIAR, Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), et Women Environment Programme (WEP) co-organized an official side event at the Bonn Climate Change Conference. The event themed: “High stakes, great urgency: Collecting evidence for gender-just and impactful climate policies,” took place on 14 June. It showcased actions from different stakeholders to advance the Gender Action Plan & national climate roadmaps.
CGIAR GENDER presented new evidence from a hotspot mapping methodology that reveals where climate change affects women the most, thereby providing direction to where investments in actions to address these inequalities should focus.
The event’s objective was to inform decision-making bodies, policymakers, and practitioners on the cross-cutting benefits of locally owned and gender-responsive climate mitigation and adaptation actions. It underlined the need to support the evidence base and disaggregated data collection to demonstrate the impact of gender-responsive solutions. It also aimed to build bridges and open new spaces for exchanging experiences and views among local practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. It contributed to the good agricultural practices (GAP) mandate and review by disseminating local practices that can be replicated in regional and national contexts.
The event featured a panel discussion to share different contributions of the gender action plan in activities, including how women and girls are agents of change, demonstrating the impact of gender-transformative solutions.
Moderator Gina Cortés Valderrama, Women Engage for a Common Future Women and Gender Constituency–Facilitative Committee, emphasized that discussions would promote the understanding of different perspectives on how gender-just and community-led climate initiatives enhance human rights and contribute to mitigation and adaptation policies and actions.
The first panelist, Agnes Mirembe, Executive Director, Action for Rural Women’s Empowerment (ARUWE), Uganda, spoke on “Towards a just, equitable and community-based energy transition.” She shared the many challenges women face in accessing, using, and distributing energy in Uganda and the process of transforming such challenges. A major challenge she mentioned was traditional constraints linked to traditional gender roles. “To alleviate the constraints, we build the capacity of local women to understand their rights and to have skills in demand. It helps them understand the issues on ground and what they can bring to the table,” she said.
Fatou Ndoye, Coordinator of ENDA Graf Sahel, Senegal, spoke on gender relationships in the fishery industry in the Saloum Delta. She shared the contributions of ENDA Graf Sahel to the significant shift of power relationships and labor division within the communities through a holistic approach and how this has enabled women to create and participate in fishing regulation committees.
Maria Victoria Bojacá, General Director of ENDA Colombia, Colombia, highlighted an urban, sustainable, and gender-just solidarity economy model that challenges masculinities. At the same time, Dr Nicoline de Haan, Director of CGIAR GENDER Platform, spoke on “How evidence and research can bring climate justice for rural women.”
WEP Founder and Global Lead Priscilla Achakpa spoke on raising awareness of the Gender Action Plan and highlighting the lessons learned from WEP in Nigeria. She explained that WEP creates awareness from the grass-root to the national level, which informs the policies. “We consult people at the grass-root to tell us what they want to see because when people are at the center of policies, implementation will take place easily,” she said.
In her closing remarks, Valderrama highlighted how the discussion showed the multiple benefits that gender-sensitive climate actions bring to the well-being of communities by strengthening national policies. She commended the panelists for the eye-opening discussions and appreciated the participants’ active engagement.
Contributed by Favour Eleta
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