FOLLOWING adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Gender Action Plan (GAP) at the Conference of Parties (COP25) hosted by Spain in 2019, Zimbabwe subsequently drafted and launched a climate change gender action plan meant to support the country’s vision for creating a transformed, inclusive, resilient, and more sustainable economy through addressing climate change vulnerabilities and advancing knowledge and understanding of gender-responsive climate action.
Development of Zimbabwe’s action plan was informed by a gender analysis of climate change that was carried out in 2020 to support the systematic mainstreaming of gender in climate change. While such a move is obviously commendable, serious commitment towards implementation of such a critical plan is needed if desired results are to be derived. Such results include, strategically harnessing linkages between the different policies dealing with climate change issues and leveraging on efforts for gender mainstreaming all policies across the board.
The plan also provides for the need to support climate change actors in the formulation and implementation of gender responsive policies and interventions that are pro-poor and sensitive to the needs and priorities of women particularly. Marginalised groups such as those living with disabilities, the elderly and the youth are also catered for in this bracket.
It is a widely believed that climate change is likely to affect women more than their male counterparts owing to the gender-based roles assigned to them (women) in society, mostly in an African context. These include fetching water in far away places, cultivating the fields to feed the family, and going to fetch firewood in the scorching heat. A well-articulated gender mainstreaming approach will thus ensure that women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences are an essential ingredient of the design, implementation, monitoring as well as evaluation of climate action policies and programmes. This is to ensure that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated as the situation is currently.
A gender-responsive approach to adaptation planning is rooted in an understanding of how climate change dissimilarly affects people of different gender, including their access to clean water, sanitation and employment opportunities and their different roles when it comes to crisis management and response.
Speaking to this publication, Zimbabwean Journalist and founder of The Southern Environment News Agency, Shorai Murwira weighed in by reiterating the importance of Zimbabwe’s climate gender action plan in advancing active women participation in policy issues in climate change related matters as they are usually the most affected.
“The climate gender action plan is important because it ensures that women’s needs, perspectives and voices are heard and considered in decision making. Women and men are impacted differently by climate change effects, with women bearing the greatest brunt. This action plan should therefore ensure that plans, strategies and budgets are gender sensitive and gender responsive to address climate change related gender inequalities,” she said.
“As a woman, this gender action plan is also very important in my view because it recognises the gap that exists between men and women, and it fosters gender sensitive climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. If this action plan is properly implemented, it will work towards strengthening the integration of gender consideration in the implementation of the revised national determined contribution and national climate change policy strategies,” Murwira added.
The Gender Action Plan is thus a very crucial tool that must be taken seriously as it has far reached benefits in addressing general disparities that are inherent in society. As climate change is a planetary phenomenon that will undoubtedly impact all people at some point, there must be measures to counter its effects that are likely to be shaped by persistent and well-established gender inequality. It is worth celebrating that international climate treaties such as the Paris Agreement give credence to the integral part that women play in the climate change matrix and thus include special provisions that ensure women are fully supported when in comes to support that helps them cope with climate change hazards.
The Paris Agreement Preamble specifically calls for gender equality and women’s empowerment, while there are sections that delve in detail about adaptation and capacity building efforts that call on countries to adopt gender-responsive approaches.
Verona Collantes, an intergovernmental specialist with UN Women was once quoted by the Global Citizen having said, “Gender inequality hampers women’s capacity and potential to be actors of climate action. These gender inequalities — access to and control over resources, access to education and information, and equal rights and access to decision-making processes — define what women and men can do and cannot do in a particular context of climate change,” she added. Having this is mind therefore calls for consistent effort among all stakeholders to ensure that the country’s blueprint is not just on paper, but rather implemented to the maximum benefit of all citizens, and women in particular.
