Climate change widening gender gap: Report

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Sept. 30: Women and girls are more vulnerable to climate change and its impacts, and their adaptive capacities are limited. 

This is what a report titled ‘State of gender equality and climate change in South Asia and the Hindu Kush Himalaya’ published by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on Thursday asserts.

Further elaborating, it states that climate change is also widening the gender gap and worsening existing social inequalities due to women’s inadequate access to and control over productive resources.

In such a global context, the report recognises Nepal’s Agriculture Development Strategy (2015 to 2035) as being gender-responsive by specifically acknowledging the challenges women face in the agriculture sector and emphasising capacity building and enhancement of entrepreneurial skills.

It also credits the country’s National Adaptation Plan 2021 for ensuring gender-responsive and socially inclusive actions to engage people of all genders in all stages of climate adaptation planning, budgeting, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

ICIMOD’s report assesses the gender and climate situation in 10 countries of South Asia and the Hindu Kush region namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

The assessment found that the countries did not lack laws promoting gender equality and social inclusion but instead lacked their implementation.

“To address the issue of climate change, there is a need to mainstream gender into decision-making on all levels, from policy to practice,” the report by the intergovernmental learning and knowledge sharing centre recommends. “This would open up avenues for women to take charge and find the autonomy needed to work towards solutions that address the issues inherent in current socio-ecological systems.”

The report also makes long-term, medium-term and short-term recommendations which include promoting gender-responsive and climate-resilient technologies such as drudgery reduction farm machinery operated by renewable energy to reduce the workload of women in agriculture, particularly in areas where the out-migration rates of active male members of the population are high. 

It also suggests taking steps to guarantee the meaningful participation of women and marginalised and disadvantaged groups in policy dialogues and in developing interventions related to climate change, agriculture, energy and water.

Furthermore, the report noted that most South Asian and Hindu Kush nations were transitioning to low-emission development pathways and were committed to achieving the global target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius and becoming net-zero in emissions by 2050. 

ICIMOD focused on these 10 countries in its analysis because about 40 per cent of the climate disasters in the planet occur in these regions and their geologically fragile mountains and coastal floodplains are vulnerable to erosion, landslides, floods, droughts and saltwater intrusion.