Transcript gender commitments of the rio conventions

Implementing
Gender comittments of the
.
Rio Conventions :
Are we the change we want to see?
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Gender Day
UNCCD COP 12, Ankara, Turkey
16 October 2015
Presented by Janet Kabeberi-Macharia
Head, Gender and Social Safeguards Unit, UNEP
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Order of presentation
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4.
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Introduction
Gender commitments of the Rio
Conventions
Challenges faced in implementation
Recommendations
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INTRODUCTION
The United Nations Conference of Sustainable Development
. convened in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 recognized
(Rio+20) which
the significant contributions to sustainable development made by
the multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Parties to
MEAs were encouraged to inter alia:
•promote policy coherence at all relevant levels,
•improve efficiency,
•reduce unnecessary overlap and duplication,
•and enhance coordination and cooperation among MEAs
Opens up space for harmonising the gender commitments under
the three Rio Conventions
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GENDER COMMITMENTS OF THE RIO CONVENTIONS
THE CONVENTION BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY : GENDER PLAN
OF ACTION (GePA) 2015-2020
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•
Key objective is to enable secretariat staff, partners and parties
at the national, regional and global levels, to overcome
constraints and take advantage of opportunities to promote
gender equality within its work.
•
The GePA sets out possible mainstreaming actions to be
undertaken by parties and for the secretariat in four key
spheres of influence: Policy, Organizational , Constituency and
Delivery
•
The GePA calls on Parties to undertake gender mainstreaming
activities, including mainstreaming gender into national
biodiversity strategies and action plans. Implementation of the
2015-2020 Plan is now underway
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GENDER COMMITMENTS OF THE RIO CONVENTIONS
THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION
Gender Mandate in UNCCD is well articulated. Various COP decisions have
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reiterated the relevance
of gender associated with core aspects of the
Convention
Decision 9/COP.10, parties approved the approved the Advocacy Policy
Framework (APF) on gender and requested the UNCCD Secretariat to work
on the implementation of the recommendations of the document. The APF
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pursues the strategic objective of identifying targets for
mainstreaming gender issues into the implementation of the 10-year
Strategy.
promotes the integration of gender within the implementation of the
UNCCD and calls for recognition of roles of men and women in
implementing the UNCCD
Focuses on four key spheres of influence: Policy, Organizational
Constituency and Delivery as is found in the CBD GePA. Its focus is on
the secretariat and no commitments for state parties
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THE UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON
CLIMATE CHANGE
• The UNFCCC secretariat is yet to develop a Gender Policy or Plan
of Action as. has been done by the other two Secretariats. Has an
internal team working on gender issues though not full time
• Over past four years the UNFCCC secretariat has been vocal in
bringing gender issues to the fore of climate change negotiations
through its Momentum for Change initiative and high level
discussions during the COP meetings
• The UNFCCC secretariat has a very strong gender constituency
that has continuously created visibility of the gender issues in
climate change negotiations and goes further to build capacity of
key stakeholders from government to civil society levels.
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Challenges in meeting MEA
commitments on gender
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Overall challenges to MEA implementation
Meeting the global, regional and national commitments
outlined in the MEAs continues to be constrained by various
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factors which have
an implication in meeting the gender
commitments:
Environmental :
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Climate change variations,
Continuous ecological degradation, Natural and climate
related disasters
• Deepening human poverty as the poorer populations that
are mostly natural resource dependent become poorer
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Overall challenges to MEA implementation
Capacity constraints
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•Different levels of capacity to implement MEA
commitments . Many countries are at different stages of
developing national environmental governance frameworks.
•Institutions and authorities dealing with environmental
issues often face challenges regarding the requisite
technical, human, legal and financial capacity
•Limited capacity of civil society actors ranging from nongovernmental organizations to the private sector caused by
poor access to justice, barriers in access to information and
effective public participation.
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Challenges to implementation MEA gender
commitments
Weak organizational arrangements in the Secretariats
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A strong organizational
structure to implement the MEA Convention’s
gender commitments within Secretariats is lacking even where there is a
Plan of action/framework in place . For example
CBD
 has 1 Gender Programme officer and no support staff. Is required to set
up a Gender focal team to support her/his work
 Ability to address gender mainstreaming work of parties through a
project supported by Japan
UNCCD No full time Gender staff
UNFCC C - No full time Gender staff. Voluntary gender team in place
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Challenges to implementation MEA gender commitments
Unequal gender balance in representation in decision making
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processes
•Despite their valuable knowledge and fundamental role in society, women
are not sufficiently represented in decision-making processes and debates on
climate change at the local, national and international level.
•We have to identify the various sites of power where women can be effective
decision makers on environmental management. Be they at community or
international level
•Limited use of Gender experts coupled with inadequate requisite data and
research constraints influencing decision making
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Challenges to implementation MEA gender commitments
Gender missing from national level planning and reporting
.
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Recent analysis by CBD secretariat shows that parties are not
reporting on gender in their National Reports, and there is little in
the NBSAPs that relates to gender.
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Overall analysis of many national planning documents addressing
natural resources management reveals that gender issues are not
adequately addressed mainly resulting from weak capacity to
mainstream gender and report on this
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At the national level, most policies do not take into account how
capacities of women and men can be used to cope with
challenges at the local, national and regional levels, and how
these can best be developed and strengthened.
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Suggested way forward
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Strengthened capacity of the Rio Conventions’
Secretariats
Strengthened capacity to mainstream gender into secretariat
activities is a .necessary first step if we are to build/enhance
capacities of parties to the Conventions. This will include:
• Development of Gender Policies and Plans of Action for the
secretariat – UNFCCC. This will also be in line with UNSWAP
requirements.
• Appoint Senior Programme Officers to coordinate's
implementation of the Polices/Plans of action. Minimum level
P4.
• Allocate financial and human resources to implement the
gender policies and plans of action
• A joint Gender Plan of Action – given the similarities of the CBD
and UNCCD documents can be considered. Example of BRS
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The Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS)
Conventions : 2013 Gender Plan of Action
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In July 2012 the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and
Stockholm
Conventions established the BRS Gender Task
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Team to develop targets and an approach to gender
mainstreaming within the BRS Secretariat.
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The BRS Gender Task Team prepared the BRS Gender Action
Plan (BRS-GAP) in 2013 which includes a vision, a list of
expected short, medium and long-term goals, and
monitoring and reporting plans.
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The vision of the BRS-GAP aims to ensure that principles of
gender equality are firmly embedded in activities
undertaken by the BRS Secretariat.
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No full time staff appointed
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The Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS)
Conventions :
• The BRS Conventions, and pertinent decisions of the
respective
Conventions’ bodies, make reference to gender
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issues at various points.
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The Conferences of the Parties have addressed the gender
issues related to implementation of the conventions
particularly the impact of poor management of hazardous
chemicals and wastes on vulnerable groups such as women
and young children. Integration of gender to be reflected
in activities under the programme of work for 2016-2017.
• Advantage : Secretariats of the three Conventions merged
to form one secretariat which has streamlined a lot is
institutional related issues and implementation processes
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Possible ways of harmonizing gender activities of
the Rio Conventions secretariats
In the short to medium term establish a Joint Gender Working
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Group to support
gender activities . The JGWG can be involved
in
• Socio-economic (gender) analysis on common issues
• Joint project development
 Strategic planning
 Development of guidelines on project
development/implementation/monitoring
 Advocacy and networking
 Knowledge, information and communication
management
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Possible ways of harmonizing gender activities of
the Rio Conventions secretariats
• Support to state parties to reduce the reporting burden
 Over 50 countries have the same national focal point for all
three conventions – enhance capacity of these focal points
to enable, joint/comprehensive reports on implementation
of gender commitments
 Quick review of the roles of the focal points, their
capacity/knowledge on gender mainstreaming, challenges
faced?
 Capacity building activities be carried out together with
partners
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Possible ways of harmonizing gender activities
of the Rio Conventions secretariats
• Systematic
. capacity building for secretariat staff and member
states
 Awareness raising on gender issues in implementation of
the conventions
 Joint preparation of technical briefs/reports on GM for
distribution to members states
 Ensure gender issues have greater visibility across the work
of the secretariats and its partners
 Joint dissemination of information
• Joint Peer review mechanism to meet UNSWAP and GEF
requirements (if required) with support from other UN agencies.
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THANK YOU
Q&A
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