Women & Gender Constituency submits recommendations for new Gender Climate Action Plan

WGC Recommendations set out to guide gender-responsive implementation of the Paris Agreement

02.09.2016 |

The Lima Work Programme on Gender and Climate (2015-2016), and prior decisions on gender and climate, have provided a platform for greater institutional coherence on gender-responsive climate policy within the UNFCCC.

Read here the Women & Gender Constituency Submission (PDF)

Recent analysis for example of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions highlighted that in total, 63 of the 188 Paris Agreement implementation plans (National Determined Constributions) include a reference to women or gender equality, but mostly only as a weak commitment.

A new Gender and Climate decision at COP22 in Marrakesh should therefore lay the foundation for continuing progress made under the Lima Work Programme on Gender in relation to institutional coherence, capacity building and knowledge exchange, incorporate specific actions to address a lack of progress on achieving gender balance on national delegations and boards/bodies, as well as generate concrete recommendations for enhancing implementation of gender-responsive climate policy.

Recommendation: Framing of a New Decision

The WGC recommends that the gender decision should call for and outline the development of a multi-year, comprehensive “Gender Action Plan”, similar to plans which exist under other Rio Conventions.

This Gender Action Plan (GAP) could be developed via a set of workshops and/or stand-alone expert meetings in 2017, and proposed for approval at COP23. The comprehensive plan, similar to the workplan of the Executive Committee for the Warsaw International Mechanism, could include a series of actions areas, from activities to enhance and build capacity of Secretariat staff to understand the links between gender and climate change, recommendations to specific Boards and Bodies of the UNFCCC, to actions that enhance the quality and availability of scientific research and sex, and gender disaggregated data and analysis at global, national as well as at regional level.

Under the GAP, each activity could include an indicative timeline, expected results and define who is responsible for implementation. Review of progress under the GAP could take place at each subsequent COPs, with a timeframe for a broad overview, or to include additional action areas in 2019 or 2020.

Recommendation: Guiding Principles

In addition to calling for a comprehensive plan, the decision at COP22 should identify a set of guiding principles to frame the Gender Action Plan, such as:

Achieve institutional coherence on gender-mainstreaming efforts across all Boards and Bodies of the UNFCCC/ issue areas and with other UN entities;
Ensure dedicated resources for the effective implementation of actions and activities outlined under the Gender Action Plan;
Enhance the goal of gender balance, and women’s full and equal participation in climate change policy-making as cross-cutting to all actions;
Ensure that women’s rights advocates and gender experts from civil society and among the Women and Gender Constituency to the UNFCCC can fully engage in all UNFCCC decision-making processes, and in particular in the development and implementation of actions under the GAP;
Recognise the local and traditional knowledge of grassroots women’s groups and indigenous women, and ensure their effective participation in enhancing gender-responsive climate change policy as well as implementation, ensuring Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC);
Recognise the multiple international instruments which lay out the framework for ensuring gender equality is central to climate change policy implementation;
Recognise gender as a lens for framing, developing and monitoring human-rights centred implementation of climate change policies in both developed and developing countries;
Promote gender equality and respect for human rights as objectives of all climate actions, including in mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, financing, technology, capacity-building and transparency;
Enhance the quality and availability of quantitative and qualitative sex-, and gender-disaggregated data and analysis, while realising that the multiple benefits of applying a gender lens to climate change actions might defy traditional quantification efforts, for example those accounting for GHG emissions.

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