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Women and men have different capacities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, due to the roles and responsibilities they carry out in their households and communities. In order to promote successful strategies and actions that help both women and men be prepared for the impacts of climate change, it is important that climate change policies meaningfully address these gender considerations.

_{^{Download the policy brief Inclusión del enfoque de género en políticas de cambio climático: Un análisis de siete países latinoamericanos (in Spanish)}}

In order to shed light on challenges and opportunities for developing more gender-inclusive climate change policies, a recent policy brief by CCAFS presents a review and analysis of the current state of gender-inclusion in policies related to climate change, agriculture and food security in seven target countries in Latin America. This is timely, given the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and current initiatives to develop adaptation plans and mitigations actions, from several governments in the region, like Colombia and Costa Rica.

Findings from the review show that climate change policies refer to gender minimally, across countries. Almost all of the national policies, strategies and plans on climate change reviewed did not take into account gender at all or they did so only minimally.

However, policies from the agricultural sector, particularly those from Central America, addressed gender considerations more significantly. Half of the policies reviewed from this sector at least included gender equality in their objectives and several even incorporated a gender focus in their action plans. The review highlights, though, that when these policies targeted climate change specifically, they consistently failed to address gender aspects.

Based on the results of the review, one of the key recommendations that the brief makes is for greater inter-sectorial coordination. In particular, coordination between the agricultural sector and those institutions responsible for national level climate change policies will be important in order to promote more gender-inclusive policymaking processes on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Such institutional changes are critical in order to ensure that climate change policies do not exacerbate gender inequalities, but rather reduce them.

Download the policy brief: Inclusión del enfoque de género en políticas de cambio climático: Un análisis de siete países latinoamericanos (in Spanish)