Gender Equality and Climate Policy Scorecard produced by the Kaschak Institute
As parties continue to convene at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP 29) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls at Binghamton University, in partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UN Women have developed a brief to support Parties in their Nationally Determined Contributions update.
This brief provides guidance on key criteria, questions, and promising examples to
strengthen gender and climate commitments within the NDCs and sets the stage for the Gender Equality and Climate Policy Scorecard that is produced by the Kaschak Institute, IUCN and UN Women.
Mentorship Program for Gender Negotiators Under the UNFCCC
The Institute, in alliance with IUCN, in the latest Conference of the Parties 27 (COP27), carried out a mentorship process with the Parties' gender delegates to help them develop technical and negotiation skills. These delegates were drawn from environmental ministries as well as negotiators from Indigenous women's groups – and included Indigenous girl youth to shadow and learn the art of climate negotiations. In the following two years, we will conduct a program that allows gender negotiators from various countries of the Global South to improve their knowledge and negotiation skills, especially considering the third ccGAP that will develop in the next two years. Furthermore, the COP28 Presidency has requested the Kaschak Institute to support them in ensuring that gender considerations are prominent in this year's COP.
Our first gender negotiators program was a 3-day workshop held July 10-12, 2023 at Binghamton University. Delegates from several countries were trained, with a group of Binghamton University students shadowing them.
Climate Change Gender Action Plans (ccGAP)
The Executive Director of KI developed the world’s first national and regional climate change policies. IUCN requested the support of the Institute to enhance its capacity to develop Climate Change and Gender Action Plan-(ccGAP). The ccGAP methodology, implemented in 28 countries, presents a path to gender mainstreaming that moves away from business as usual by building capacity across stakeholders to construct nationally appropriate non-conventional solutions that are concrete, practical, and innovative. The ccGAP moves beyond framing women and girls as vulnerable victims to recognize gender equality as a driver for transformational change. These plans foster a comprehensive approach that embeds gender equality in the policy frameworks of technical sectors, offers strategies to eliminate institutional barriers to implementation, and highlights innovative activities that are driven by and engage women as entrepreneurs, leaders, and partners in climate change response for more resilient communities and countries.
In 2022-23 we supported the development of Guatemala’s ccGAP. This experience also offered students a unique hands-on experience working with climate change and gender policy.
The Development of a ccGAP has Four Steps
1. Take stock. Analyze the country's legislative and policy framework and any institutional initiatives in areas as diverse as natural resources, disaster risk reduction, socio-economic issues, industry, energy, gender equality, and finance.
2. Level the playing field. Enhance the engagement of women and women's organizations in the development of the ccGAP, through a training session conducted to build both technical knowledge and women's confidence in climate change themes and to identify women's priorities and ideas.
3. Capture diverse voices and views. As part of a multi-stakeholder workshop, representatives from government, non-governmental institutions, academia, international institutions, and community groups, among others, assess the country's current situation concerning gender and climate change, envision a future scenario across priority sectors, and agree on action steps toward that scenario.
4. Prioritize and put into action. A national team elected by participants in the multi-stakeholder workshop finalizes the action steps into an action plan and continues after the workshop to gather input from various stakeholders to complete the ccGAP.
Examples of ccGAPs in Latin America and Caribbean countries are:
Peru: https://genderandenvironment.org/plan-de-accion-en-genero-y-cambio-climatico-del-peru-pagcc-peru/
Dominican-Republic: https://genderandenvironment.org/plan-de-accion-genero-y-cambio-climatico-de-republica-dominicana-pagcc-rd/
