Presentation covers the importance of gender, gender mainstreaming, especially within the UNFCCC, and gender and the Paris Agreement.

1. GENDER ANALYSIS OF THE PARIS
AGREEMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
AFRICA
Priscilla Achakpa, PhD
Executive Director, Women Environmental Programme (WEP)
Members of Women and Gender Constituency on African Women’s Day at CoP22
Photo by: John Baaki, WEP

2. Outline
• Concept of gender and gender mainstreaming
• Why consideration of gender is important
• Gender mainstreaming within UNFCCC
• How gender is included in the Paris Agreement
• Absences of gender awareness in the Paris Agreement

3. Concept of gender and gender
mainstreaming
• Gender is not women, but has something to do with women too.
• And you may not be wrong to say –Gender is Everybody –since it has
something to do with both men and women, young and old, sound and
mentally retarded, physically fit and the physically challenged.
• Gender is a socially constructed definition of women and men. It is not
the same as sex (biological characteristics of women and men) and it is
not the same as women. Gender is determined by the conception of
tasks, functions and roles attributed to women and men in society and in
public and private life.1
______________________________________________
1. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Gender in Practice.
http://www.preventionweb.net/files/9533_genderkit.pdf

4. Gender mainstreaming is the integration of gender equality
and equity concerns into the analysis and formulation of
policies , programs, projects and legislations.
Why is gender mainstreaming necessary?
To bridge the gap or disparity between individuals due to
gender
Concept of gender and gender mainstreaming

5. Why gender matters in climate change
• Men and women have different access to the assets and resources
required to respond to climate change:
• Financial resources
• Land
• Education
• Health
• Ability to participate in decision-making systems

6. Gender mainstreaming within
UNFCCC
• Decision CP 23 of the Subsidiary Body
of Implementation of UNFCCC
established the Gender Action Plan
(GAP) at CoP 23. This is aimed at
ensuring women are represented in
all aspects of the Convention process
and a need for gender mainstreaming
through all relevant targets and goals
in activities under the Convention as
an important contribution to
increasing their effectiveness.
Gender in UNFCCC’s decisions
Source: WEDO. Gender and Climate
Tracker

7. Snapshots of statistics on participation of
women in climate change process
Source: WEDO’s Gender and Climate Tracker

8. Snapshots of statistics on participation of
women in climate change process
Source: WEDO’s Gender and Climate Tracker

9. Where gender is mentioned in
the Paris Agreement

10. Preamble
“Acknowledging that climate change is a common
concern of humankind, Parties should, when taking
action to address climate change, respect, promote
and consider their respective obligations on human
rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous
peoples, local communities, migrants, children,
persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable
situations and the right to development, as well as
gender equality, empowerment of women and
intergenerational equity”
More to do with existing obligations than
recognition of differential vulnerability

11. Article 7-Adaptation
“Parties acknowledge that adaptation action should follow a
country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully
transparent approach, taking into consideration vulnerable
groups, communities and ecosystems, and should be based on
and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate,
traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and
local knowledge systems, with a view to integrating
adaptation into relevant socioeconomic and environmental
policies and actions, where appropriate”
Gender-responsive adaptation means that both men
and women should be involved in adaptation planning,
and that interventions should be gender-equitable
(which may mean different for men compared to
women so as not to reinforce existing inequalities)

12. Article 11-Capacity building
“Capacity-building should be country-driven, based on
and responsive to national needs, and foster country
ownership of Parties, in particular, for developing country
Parties, including at the national, subnational and local
levels. Capacity-building should be guided by lessons
learned, including those from capacity-building activities
under the Convention, and should be an effective,
iterative process that is participatory, cross-cutting and
gender-responsive”.
Implicitly recognises differential vulnerabilities
and highlights imperative to highlight different capacity
building needs of men and women, and the importance
of responding to them

13. Where gender is NOT
mentioned in the Paris
Agreement
Why does this matter?

14. Mitigation
• Agriculture is a major source of African emissions –
and women are often farmers
• Mitigation opportunities can benefit women (e.g.
energy-efficient labour-saving cook stoves)
• Women can contribute to mitigation efforts (natural
resource stewardship, e.g. reforestation, agroforestry)
• Without gender-responsive mitigation strategies,
gender inequality may be reinforced

15. Finance and technology
• Both are key to enable adaptation and mitigation
• Need to ensure both women’s and men’s voices are heard in deciding
allocations and priorities (at strategic level)
• Need to ensure finance and technology is targeted to support gender-
equitable adaptation and mitigation (which may mean different
interventions for men and women)

16. Steps to ensure gender-
responsive implementation of the
Paris Agreement

17. Assess the gender differences and establish
baseline situation
• “Undertake analysis of gender differences in vulnerability, as well as
adaptation and mitigation (current activities and future needs).
• Determine where sex-disaggregated data exists (e.g. through national
household survey data) and make plans to sex-disaggregate relevant
data in future in order to be able to monitor change in vulnerability
within the context of implementation of adaptation and mitigation
activities”

18. Analyse adequacy of existing policies and
strategies with relation to gender issues
• “Determine the extent to which existing climate change-related
policies and strategies address gender issues and gaps. Revise if
necessary.
• Ensure that development of related strategies are gender-sensitive,
for example the (I)NDC and National Adaptation Plans. If the National
Adaptation Plan is not yet completed, critically assess the process to
determine whether it is gender equitable (for example is sufficient
room made for comments and inputs from both men and women).
Use assessment of gender differences to inform inclusion of activities.
• Establish monitoring framework using sex-disaggregated indicators.”

19. Implementation
• “Determine budget needs to effectively implement gender-responsive
climate policies and strategies
• Apply gender budgeting, highlighting how public resources will be
allocated such that both men and women benefit equitably. If the
policies and strategies which they are planned to implement have
already been made gender-responsive, gender budgeting involves
ensuring that resources allocated to their implementation also
equitably benefit men and women (for example if resources allocated
are less than that required for full implementation).
• Monitor budgetary allocations with the support of sex-disaggregated
indicators.”

20. Conclusion
• Gender differences in climate change (adaptation and mitigation are well
known)
• Even though the Paris Agreement did not include gender text in all the relevant
areas, the Gender Action Plan recommends gender mainstreaming in all climate
change processes
• National policies and strategies to implement the Paris Agreement therefore
need to be more gender-responsive
• This will offer opportunity for gender responsive adaptation and mitigation
actions as well as inclusion of more African women in climate change decisions.
This will no doubt increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change. But
if the National policies and strategies to implement the Paris Agreement do not
take seriously gender issues into account, this will leave African women much
more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and make their conditions
worse of than when the Paris Agreement was yet to be signed