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Best Practices in Integrating Gender into National Climate Actions
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Over 300 participants from 35 countries registered for the third regional workshop on integrating gender into national climate actions, held online on 16 September 2020 (read more about the five-event series). The event provided the opportunity to hear from leading countries and enable peer-to-peer exchange on the best practices and challenges that governments face in integrating gender into national climate policies, plans, strategies and actions.

The workshop was co-organized by the secretariat’s gender team, the Regional Collaboration Centres in Panama and St. George’s, and UNDP. Members from Panama’s Youth Climate Change organization provided valuable assistance. Through this collaboration, we were able to leverage regional expertise and relationships to secure key speakers and promote the event through regional networks.

Participants heard from Party representatives and observers about the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming to enhance climate action; gender data and analysis; institutional arrangements; as well as policy alignment and coherence measures. Speakers included country representatives from Mexico, Uruguay, Jamaica, Chile, Canada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines, and representatives from organizations such as EmpoderaClima, FLASCO, and UNDP.

During the panel discussions, country examples ranged from a high-level gender integration strategy to specific actions and tools to facilitate gender integration, including:

  • Chile emphasized the evolution of their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2015, which was gender-blind, to the development of their updated NDC in 2020, that includes gender as a cross-cutting implementation criterion.
  • Saint Lucia explained that inter-agency collaboration has facilitated the progress of the EnGenDER project, which assists in creating even more gender-responsive National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and sectoral adaptation strategies for those countries participating.
  • In Uruguay, a survey of women farmers and rural stakeholders was conducted to develop gender-sensitive indicators for the agricultural sector in their NAP.

Participants expressed their appreciation for the variety of examples shared and identified gender disaggregated data and increased collaboration among relevant ministries and sectors as key areas that are needed to facilitate future actions.

It has become clear from the regional workshops that a growing number of countries aim to integrate gender into their climate plans. Of the updated or new NDCs that have already been submitted in 2020, nine include references to gender. Additionally, of 15 countries that participated in a survey on NDCs in Latin America, 80% indicated that they plan to include gender in their enhanced NDCs.

The workshop was a unique opportunity for participants to engage with each other in breakout sessions facilitated by gender and climate specialists. The Mentimeter online survey tool allowed participants to respond to questions and share their insights in real time. Remote simultaneous interpretation in Spanish also increased the reach of the workshop among practitioners in the region.

Respondents from the post-event survey praised the comprehensiveness of topics, the regional focus and the opportunity to exchange ideas in the breakout sessions.

Participant contributions along with the recording of the workshop and speaker presentations are available online. A collection of lessons learned is under development and an informal workshop report will be prepared for SB 53.

Workshops for sub-Saharan Africa on 30 September and Middle East and North Africa on 14 October will finish out the series. Resources from the Asia & Pacific and Europe & Central Asia workshops are available online. A virtual marketplace of organizations working on gender integration is also available online.

Other regional events supported by the Regional Collaboration Centres (RCCs) - in St. George’s for the Caribbean and in Panama for Latin America - include the 8th ACE Dialogues for Climate Empowerment, the Regional Resilience Dialogues and more.

A platform with a list of virtual meetings which have either already taken place or will be held in the six regions in the upcoming days/months (organized by the RCCs, the secretariat or by partners) is available online.

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