Proyectos

Project description

Gender inequality is increasingly recognized as an impediment to achieving resilient and sustainable economic and social development in Africa. The exclusion of half the population from social, political, and economic stages will hinder successful development and implementation of climate change interventions. The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Second Climate Change Action Plan (2016-2020) stresses the link between gender and climate must be an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and investment plans. Gender equality is also a central commitment of the African Union (AU) through its decisions including adoption of Article 4 (L) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which enshrined the Gender Equality Principle, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa. Gender mainstreaming in various sectors in Africa is taking place, from national policies, to institutional reforms and project development, thus providing equitable low emission development pathways for many countries. African countries must understand that implementing the Paris Agreement and other commitments such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and the Reduction Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) requires transformational changes by each country towards low-emission, climate resilient, inclusive, and sustainable development.

ICCASA project is geared towards promoting the importance of gender mainstreaming in climate policies, practices, and negotiations as this will be important for ensuring that climate actions will help women and men reduce their vulnerability and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Through its various activities, ICCASA will contribute to ensuring gender balance in access to policymaking and negotiation spaces so the needs and perspectives of women and men are adequately addressed in policymaking and UNFCCC processes.

Project activities

• Enhance the role of women in building and strengthening resilience in agro-pastoral communities by developing the capacity of policymakers and climate negotiators to integrate gender into national climate change policy.
• Support women's, and the broader communities’, resilience and capacity to adapt to climate change.
• Support equal participation by women and men as decision-makers in shaping the sustainable development of their societies.
• Create a development pathway to integrate information on climate change adaptation into national policy and planning, which considers and responds to the gender dimensions of development.
• Develop training manuals on gender-responsive climate change policymaking for national policymakers and on gender responsive negotiations for Africa Gender Negotiators (AGN) and national gender focal points.
• Conduct a multi-country workshop engaging high level stakeholders from several East African countries. Participants will include representatives from environment, parliamentary, gender, finance, planning, energy, water, agriculture, climate change, and forestry departments.
• Organize a stocktaking event on the sidelines of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA)/Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) 2018 to guide governments on efficient sector regulation and governance in relation to gender and climate change.
• Conduct gender and climate change vulnerability hotspot mapping.

Expected outcomes

The project’s main focus is to build the capacity of policymakers and climate negotiators to integrate gender into national climate change policy. A range of new, responsive knowledge products that address gender in nationally determined contributions and other national policies, strategies, and plans will support this goal.  A follow up to the Gender Action Plan (GAP) developed at COP23 is also a key objective of this initiative.

Outputs

• Training manuals and reports on gender and climate change for Africa.
• Policy briefs for policymakers, negotiators, development organizations, and civil society organizations and a concise summary of those documents.
• Info Notes on gender and climate change best practices from 10 African countries as well as gender and climate change vulnerability hotspots throughout Africa.
• Databases and a knowledge portal will be established and available to national governments and other stakeholders. The databases and knowledge portal will be hosted on the CCAFS website in partnership with AfDB and AWGGCC.
• Webinars structured as online training in English and later translated into French and Arabic.

Partners

The Inclusive Climate Change Adaptation for a Sustainable Africa (ICCASA) program is an African Development Bank Group (AfDB) project funded by the Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Trust Fund (KOAFEC). The project is to be implemented across Africa by four partners: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC), Women in Global Science and Technology (WISAT), and World University Service of Canada (WUSC).

Each organization brings unique programmatic, geographic, and thematic experiences, and draws on the expertise of a range of public and private sector professional networks in Canada, Africa, and globally. Of particular relevance to the assignment is the expertise of consortium partner AWGGCC, which coordinates and provides leadership for Africa’s engagement in regional and global gender and climate change processes.

Further information

For further information, please contact project leaders Mary Nyasimi at m.nyasimi@cgiar.org or Sophia Huyer at s.huyer@cgiar.org.

Funding for this project is provided by: