Today marks the second annual Gender Day at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Conference, which opened (PDF) last week in Warsaw, Poland. Leaders from around the world are focusing on how to achieve their commitments to promote gender balance and improve women’s participation in international and local level decision-making related to climate change.
This year, USAID is proud to announce that we are initiating a new partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to work together to expand and enhance USAID’s efforts to address gender issues through programming and support to our partner governments.
This support is critical as climate change will have a serious impact on the livelihoods of poor women in developing countries; the increasing frequency of droughts and stronger storms will affect agriculture and water resources, sectors in which women have an essential management role.
Speaking on a panel this morning, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality emphasized that “globally, women are central to unlocking solutions to the climate change challenges we face.”
IUCN has found that women often lead the way in adapting to climate change impacts, and play a key role in mitigating climate change by optimizing energy efficiency, using low-footprint energy sources and techniques, and influencing a household’s and community’s consumption patterns. Women’s participation in decision making at higher levels has specifically benefited environmental policy, such that countries with a higher number of women in their parliaments are more likely to set aside protected land areas and ratify international environmental treaties. In fact, recent data (PDF) reveals that there is a causal relationship between environment and gender; when gender inequality is high, forest depletion, air pollution and other measures of environmental degradation are also high.
While women can be agents of change, their contributions are seldom fully harnessed. The result is a lost opportunity. This new partnership will be aimed at advancing women’s empowerment and gender quality to achieve greater strides in reducing emissions to mitigate climate change, building resilience to climate change impacts, and promoting better development in general.
While plans are necessary to illuminate the pathway to a goal, they are not sufficient for attaining those goals. This new agreement with IUCN to implement the Gender Equality for Climate Change Opportunities (GECCO) project will provide USAID and our partner governments with support for our mutual goal of advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality through and for the benefit of climate change and development programs.
We have seen great progress in recent years, with growing attention to gender issues within the UNFCCC and within projects addressing these issues at the country level. However, there is much work still to be done, so we are excited about the opportunities this new partnership with IUCN brings.