GIZ Gender WebsiteWhen GUCCI Meets GAMMA – Recognising Women as Powerful Stakeholders in Climate Action
By now, it is widely recognized that climate change affects women and men differently and that women worldwide are often disproportionately affected by its impacts. Women’s rights are human rights that need to be protected and promoted across all sectors. Additionally, there is also a very practical reason to address gender equality in climate action: Climate targets can only be reached if development cooperation designs and implements gender-responsive strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Gender-responsive climate action not only helps to unlock the potential of women as bearers of knowledge and to address gendered vulnerabilities. It also ensures that existing inequalities – including hindered access to resources, education and political participation – are not worsened by policies and measures that do not consider gender aspects.
Women and men have different capacities to adapt to and to mitigate climate change. As farmers and agricultural producers primarily responsible for their families’ livelihood, many women in the Global South have already developed strategies to cope with and adapt to climate hazards like extended drought seasons and arbitrary rainfall. In many of our cooperation projects, we know them as powerful stakeholders in implementing low-carbon pathways. A comprehensive approach to gender and climate change is essential both for advancing gender equality and for effectively addressing the multiple challenges that climate change poses. However, recent analyses show that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted so far fall short of these necessary commitments. If gender aspects or women are mentioned at all, it is most commonly in relation to adaptation and as a vulnerable group.
In response, the Sector Program “Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Rights” hosted the event “Gender-responsive NDC Implementation – what does it mean in practice?” as part of the GIZ Gender Week 2019. Importantly, both the input-providing talks by leading experts in the field as well as the ensuing discussions emphasized that women are not only more adversely affected by climate change but also urgently-needed and capable agents of change.
If you are interested in finding out more about how we can incorporate women as stakeholders in all climate action or simply want to know what hides behind the memorable acronyms GUCCI and GAMMA (hint: it has neither to do with high fashion nor with complex mathematical functions), please find some additional resources below. You are also more than welcome to approach us with comments, suggestions or ideas for cooperation – we are looking forward to the exchange!
UNFCCC Gender Action Plan
Pocket guide to gender and climate change under UNFCCC (WEDO)
Gender Just Climate Solutions Award (WECF)
GUCCI (GenderCC)
GAMMA (GenderCC)
Mainstreaming Gender Considerations in Climate Change Projects (UNWomen)
Gender as a new priority area within the NDC Partnership
Gender in German Development