Introduction - INTEGRATING GENDER IN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PROPOSALS | INTEGRATING GENDER IN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PROPOSALS

Although successful climate change adaptation will depend on multi-sectoral approaches and cross-sectoral synergies, CCA proposals are generally organized by sectors, such as:

Agriculture
Forest management and watershed management
Biodiversity conservation
Coastal water resources/fisheries
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
Health
Energy
Transportation
Urbanization and cities.

The gender “wheel”does not need to be reinvented for CCA projects. There is already a great deal of literature regarding gender issues and mainstreaming strategies for each of these sectors. There are also analyses of sector-specific climate impacts on women and the adaptation strategies already used by women (Table 4). CCA proposals can incorporate this information into discussions of the social and gender context and identify how women’s existing CCA strategies can replicated and scaled-up. It is important to note that addressing gender issues often entails cross-sectoral approaches (e.g., transportation of water and fuelwood;water supply and sanitation with watershed management).

TABLE 4. Illustrative Climate Impacts on Women and Adaptation Strategies by Women for Sourcebook Sectors^[10]
Sector/Issue	Direct or Indirect Impacts on Women	Adaptation Strategies Already Used by Women
Agriculture	Reduced access to fertile land Loss of tradtional land tenure rights Reduced food insecurity, nutrition, and hunger Increased time to collect wild food, clean water Reduced time for school;lower literacy	Adapt crop, animal, and tree practices Save foods, seeds, or animals Practice soil and water conservation Diversify livelihoods Purchase crop/livestock insurance
Forestry	Increased time needed to collect fuelwood, wild food, and medicine with increased safety risks Reduced time for school;lower literacy	Reduce harvesting Shift to other species Reforestation and afforestation
Biodiversity Conservation	Unsustainable collection of sources of wild foods and medicines Reduced tourism-related income	Reduce harvesting;growing wild plants in home gardents Species substitution for plants or animals
Fisheries	Reduced fish supplies for family nutrition and sale Men fishers shift to gleaning, displacing women	Shift to other species Grow seaweed commercially
Watershed Management	Displacement and resource loss from flooding Increased health care duties with polluted water	Take slope stabilization measures Adopt water purification measures
WASH	Increased time for family hygiene and health care Increased water collection time	Adopt water-saving practices/harvest rainwater Buy water from vendors
Health	Increased diarrheal, heat, respiratory, and stress-related illnesses;increased family healthcare time Family medicine costs increase with reduced supplies of medicine from wild plans and animals	Increase reliance on natural medicines Adjust diets
Energy	Reduced forest-based energy supplies Increased use of crop residues for fuel Increased fuel needed with lower temperatures at higher elevations	Switch fuels and adopt more efficient stoves Increase tree growing
Transportation	Limited mobility options if no public transport Increased personal security risks in traveling without public transportation	Multitasking during travel to reduce the number of trips required and travel expense Travel in groups to reduce vulnerability to violence
Urbanization and Cities	More women’s migration to informal settlements Increased displacement during/after flooding	Seek security of ownership for housing Relocate and improve housing

Across sectors, there are common development objectives and associated gender strategies. Table 5 provides a number of illustrative gender strategies for the activities common to CCA proposals.

TABLE 5. Gender Strategy Ideas for Common Development Components in CCA Projects
Development Component	Illustrative Gender Strategies
Improve service and information provision	Specify plans for addressing gender-specific barriers to obtaining services, including client support and capacity-building provider Improve climate information flows by sex-specific communication strategies
Diversify livelihood	Specify gender-specific plans for improving women client capacities Introduce new products, skills, and technologies suitable to women’s needs and resources Improve women’s access to markets and more profitable value chain roles Expand access to natural resources, credit, insurance and other financial mechanisms
Improve natural resource management practices	Adapt promoted practices to the existing gender division of labor for agriculture, forestry, and fisheries Tailor capacity-building logistics by sex Improve women’s land tenure security Elaborate on the underlying causes of gender-specific exposure to climate related disasters and vulnerabilities;any identified inequalities in exposure and sensitivity to climate related disasters as well as inequalities in access to resources (e.g., land tenure, access to water, forest stewardship, etc.)
Improve planning processes and decision-making	Adapt participation/membership criteria and reduce participation barriers for women’s active participation and leadership in decision-making bodies at all levels (i.e., forestry, watershed management, irrigation water, coastal management, biodiversity conservation, and disasters) Offer capacity development training to build a pipeline of professional women in senior and management positions in the sector Adjust priorities for policy agenda to represent men’s and women’s interests Engage women in disaster risk management and recovery decision-making
Introduce climate-adapted housing, transportation, and infrastructure	Adjust collateral and identity requirements to expand women’s housing ownership and security Expand women’s skills and opportunities for equally paid labor in housing and infrastructure development Adapt transportation and infrastructure design on the basis of consultations with men and women Offer socialized tariffs and/or subsidies for connection fees to ensure that the households of vulnerable groups have access to basic infrastructure and services Engage women in the design of disaster mitigation infrastructure
Improve food security and health	Engage more men in making decisions about health;domesticate wild food and medicinal plants for sustainable production and sale by women Introduce climate- and disaster-adapted food storage Recognize and protect (including through formalization) informal land-use practices Improve women’s access to extension services, credits and appropriate seeds and technologies
Improve policy	Reduce gender-based barriers, improve women’s opportunities, access, and security;include gender issues as part of policy analyses Adopt gender-inclusive practices for policy consultations

Across all sectors, there are commonalities with respect to allocating dedicated budget for facilitating greater participation of women stakeholders;involving gender specialists in design, proposal development, and implementation;undertaking a baseline gender analysis;creating a GAP;establishing gender indicators and targets after gender-sensitive stakeholder consultation and in advance of implementation;and ensuring collection of sex-disaggregated and gender-related M&E data. Sourcebook users who read multiple sectoral modules will notice that there is some duplication of gender issues, strategies, and indicators across the cases. This duplication ensures that those who read just one sectoral module will have the necessary information for proposal development.

Each module is organized to highlight climate impacts for a sector, gender issues influencing the sector, and the likely gender impacts for the sector as a result of climate change.

In the entry points section of each module below, ideas are provided about infusing gender mainstreaming into the following:

The climate vulnerability assessment and context diagnostic exercises that occur prior to project design
The planning and design processes for specific sectoral interventions for CCA adaptations
The implementation plans for specific activities itemized under sectoral components.

The sectoral modules also include suggestions for gender-related monitoring and further readings. Box 7 (above) lists additional literature sources on gender-related indicators.

Each short module below provides a review of relevant gender issues for a sector, what kind of gender impacts result for that sector in a context of changing climate, recommended gender entry points for projects in the sector, advice on monitoring gender impacts, including illustrative gender indicators, and suggestions for further reading. Text boxes are included to highlight good practice examples;more in-depth cases can be found for the sectors in Section 8. These materials are intended to offer ideas to project designers and proposal writers about how to frame questions during data collection and how other projects have creatively mainstreamed gender strategies to achieve their sectoral objectives and advance gender equality.