4. KEY ASSUMPTIONS FOR GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN CCA PROPOSAL PREPARATION

Government CCA project proposals
to international climate funds tend to fall into three categories:

  • Dedicated adaptation measures (non-sector specific)
    that seek to address specific climate change risks or create an institutional and policy “architecture”within a country for oversight of assessments of climate data and adaptation status, activity planning and implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).
  • Climate mainstreaming activities (non-sector specific)
    that aim to enhance economic and development planning processes through climate data and awareness-raising of problems and strategies.
  • Climate-friendly sector-specific development activities
    that increase climate resilience for a sector (e.g., agriculture, energy) and use asset-based approaches to building stakeholder and institutional capacity.

Stakeholder participation in CCA project design
.
 
Once adaptation projects are identified, the design process typically involves some type of stakeholder consultation and commissioned analyses. Consultation processes can reinforce social and gender inequalities or broaden access and reduce social inequalities. Some countries involve women’s groups and representatives from gender ministries. Gender analysis may or may not be done for national climate planning. Depending on the commitments of the donor agencies, there may or may not be a gender analysis during project development. The involvement of gender specialists varies, as does the development, prior to implementation, of a gender action plan (GAP) for a particular project.

Many CCA programs already have a strong social dimension
. They focus on building resilience and decreasing risk for communities, households, and individuals. As such, these programs have great potential to make significant positive economic and social changes in the lives of both women and men in developing countries.

Gender issues for the proposal topic, country, and project locations need to be identified via data collection
. CCA proposal preparers, through collection of primary or secondary data, including stakeholder consultation, need to identify gender issues and needs, as well as national-level institutional and policy frameworks and national commitments to gender equality. Better proposals result from understanding the types of gender-sensitive interventions that have become good practices for particular sectors or regions. Secondary gender data are not always adequate and may need to be supplemented during project design.

CCA project activities and targets should be guided by national priorities and commitments for gender equality and also culturally based gender norms
. These priorities and norms can be determined via the gender data collection process.

Gender expertise greatly enhances attention to gender in project design and proposal preparation
. Early inputs by gender specialists can help proposal teams collect relevant gender data and understand the project implications of those data. While climate specialists engaged in proposal work may benefit from focused gender capacity building, it is also fair to say that many gender generalists will become more effective if provided with CCA training. Gender specialists working on both project design and proposal preparation need research and analytical skills as well as consultation facilitation expertise. They may come from fund staff, donor agency staff or consultants, or host country project partners from organizations with gender expertise.

Specifying people-level outcomes, including sex-disaggregated and gender-related indicators, can set the course for better gender mainstreaming during project implementation
. Projects are much less likely to find the commitment and resources to address gender issues if targets, plans and budgets are not specified at the proposal stage.