Five Resources to Help You Link Gender and Climate Action
With International Women’s Day around the corner, we have an opportunity to celebrate the many women pushing forward ambitious climate action and a chance to reflect on how international communities can better include women in climate planning and projects. This blog highlights five tools that will help you with the what, why, and how of gender-responsive NDC planning and implementation. The NDC Partnership’s Knowledge Portal has dozens of resources specifically geared to integrating gender equality and climate action. In the Climate Toolbox alone, there are 93 relevant tools created by the Partnership’s network of leading climate and gender institutions. Here are a few resources to get you started:
1. Open Online Course on Gender and Environment
Are you interested in the fundamentals of how to link gender equality and environmental sustainability, or why the two are complementary? If so, this free online course developed by UN CC:Learn in cooperation with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a great place to begin.
This is a self-paced online course with four one-hour-long modules, covering climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation. Two additional modules on water and waste management are coming soon. You can take the modules over as long a period or in whatever order you like, and you do not need to be an expert in gender or the environment to understand the user-friendly material. As a bonus, you’ll get a certificate for each module you complete!
2. Approaches for Gender Responsive Urban Mobility
When it comes to urban transport, the intersection between gender and climate is particularly clear. As cities invest millions of dollars in public transport, they must simultaneously reduce emissions and promote inclusiveness. Gender equality in the transport sector is a priority for many cities. However, challenges include safety considerations, gender norms, and women’s unequal access to financial resources, which often give women less flexibility than men in their transport options.
This guidance document from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) breaks down the daunting task of planning a gender-responsive urban transport system into concrete steps. It walks you through a gender analysis for urban mobility, how to design transport that’s safe and accessible for women, and even includes a basic implementation checklist. There are also 14 good practice examples from around the world.
3. The Gender and Agriculture Sourcebook
In rural areas, as in urban ones, it is imperative to account for gender equality in activities to promote sustainable development and climate action. In the agricultural sector—a sector particularly vulnerable to climate impacts--women often play key roles yet have unequal access to land, resources, and decision-making. This sourcebook developed by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), is a guide for technical practitioners to integrate gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects. It includes practical advice, guidelines, and approaches that have worked to mainstream gender into the agricultural operations of development agencies.
While the sourcebook is lengthy, it is easy to navigate. The table of contents allows you to jump directly to the topic most relevant to you. It is organized into 16 sections, based on themes and agricultural sub-sectors of particular relevance to rural development and gender empowerment. Examples include policy and governance, rural finance, agricultural innovation, livestock, and fisheries.
4. Mainstreaming Gender in Green Climate Fund Projects
Did you know that to receive funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for a mitigation or adaptation project, your project must contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment? This tool, developed by the GCF and UN Women, reviews the GCF Gender Policy, and explains how to integrate gender into the design of climate projects. It focuses on the elements needed to meet the GCF project cycle’s core requirements, including gender analyses, gender assessment and action plans, gender-responsive results frameworks, project implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.
5. Gender in Mitigation Actions Case Study
In addition to the nearly one-hundred gender-related tools in the NDC Partnership’s Climate Toolbox, there are also several relevant case studies in the Good Practice Database and funding sources in the Climate Finance Explorer.
This good practice example, developed by USAID and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), focuses on the GECCO initiative, which supports national efforts to mainstream gender into the energy sector. It includes activities in Bhutan, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Jordan, Liberia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Peru, and Vanuatu.
This blog was written by Talia Calnek-Sugin, Project Coordinator with the NDC Partnership Support Unit.