Gender equality and climate change: gender mainstreaming in natural resource management programmes
Over the past two decades climate change has increasingly become recognised as a serious threat to sustainable development, with current and projected impacts on areas such as environment, agriculture, energy, human health, food security, economic activity, natural resources and physical infrastructure.
Climate change does not affect women and men in the same way and it has, and will have a gender-differentiated impact due to gender specific division of labour and power relations. Therefore all aspects related to climate change must include a gender perspective.
We will look at the impact of climate change on gender equality and the value added of a gender responsive approach to climate change policies from two different angles:
1. International policy strategies: What are the key questions for GEM in politics, in policy dialogue and multilateral cooperation and where are possible entry points? We learn about the way international legal instruments recognize the relation between gender and climate. We will look at the way platforms for promoting gender equality issues are promoted. We discuss possible minimal standards of gender equality in budgets for research and policy looking also at financing mechanisms.
2. Areas of work in cooperation: Based on CEDAW norms we discuss the change of access for women and men to natural resources, assets, and time (paid and unpaid work). We look at fields of action where gender responsive sustainability can be developed (i.e. property rights, waste disposal, mobility, food security, access to drinking water and sanitation, energy, forestry, technological know-how). We will use methods to enhance gender equality with planning and implementing programmes and project.
Objectives
Increase knowledge about the relation between gender, sustainable environmental strategies in the context of climate change, and the economy of time in cooperation. Comprehend the international mandates, conventions and legal frameworks and its implication for promoting gender in climate change debates. Awareness raising for the relevance of gender equality in issues for cooperation activities in areas of climate change and natural resource managment, and identify possible areas of work at the level of policies as well as mitigation and adaption initiatives both at the global and at national level.