Gender Indicators for Global Climate Change Funds Still an Afterthought #egender

Of the millions of dollars spent on climate change projects in developing countries, little has been allocated in a way that will benefit women. Yet, it is women who will be most affected by climate change.

According to UN data, about 80% of the continent’s smallholder farmers are women. While they are responsible for the food security of millions of people, they will be the hardest hit by climate change.

“There is a lot of international talk about climate change funding for local communities and women, but not much is actually happening,” says Ange Bukasa, who runs the investment facilitation organisation Chezange Connect in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) was established in 2008 by the World Bank in cooperation with regional multilateral development banks to provide funding for developing countries’ climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. It has allocated 6.5 billion dollars to climate change projects in 45 developing countries.

However, 70% of the funding is financing large-scale clean technology energy and transportation projects. These are traditionally male-dominated sectors of the formal economy.

Only 30% is being spent on small-scale projects that directly benefit poor, rural communities and thereby potentially improve women’s livelihoods.

Experts at the UNDP warn that the funds could run the risk of perpetuating existing gender imbalances.

Women need to be consulted when designing and implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives.

However, this does not happen often enough. “The links between large regional institutions that administer the funds and the people on the ground who need to access them are missing,” says Bukasa.

Problems include a lack of consultation with women smallholder farmers, and a lack of education about climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The banks managing the CIF have pledged to integrate gender indicators into all operations and include them in the main criteria for the approval of grants.
“We are planning to take gender into greater account and are introducing more and more indicators to assess the gender dimension of projects,” says Mafalda Duarte, climate finance coordinator at the African Development Bank (AfDB), one of the regional institutions administering the funds.
The funds will go towards solar energy projects, improved cooking stoves, sustainable forestry projects, solar-powered irrigation as well as water storage and heating systems.
To read the full article, please visit IPS News.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2011 under E-gender.
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