As the Government of Grenada continues to aggressively move its climate change adaptation agenda, the government is determined to empower all its citizens, and in particular, its women and girls, to achieve its targets for gender equality as set out under the Sustainable Development Goals.
Climate change is not just an environmental issue, but links to social justice, equity, and human rights, all of which have gender elements. Gender roles can also feed into inequality and the ability to deal with climate change impacts and the disproportionate access to the resources available to adapt to these impacts. Women from the Caribbean region witness the nexus between climate change and gender issues on a first-hand basis due to the fact that they are highly dependent on the land and water resources for survival.
For instance, in Grenada, rural women are amongst the most vulnerable groups to the impacts of climate change. They often are the head of single parent households, they farm on small plots for subsidence and sometimes engage in small-scale agro-processing. They also face many difficulties/challenges to source the finance needed to invest in these critical adaptation measures to avoid loss of crop and livestock through floods, land slippage or drought.
Therefore, gender issues must be considered when developing projects, particularly projects that deal with climate change adaptation since they support the resilience of our society and need to respond equally to the needs of all members of society. This process, also known as Strategic Gender Mainstreaming, requires stakeholders to bring their perceptions, experience, knowledge and interests of both women and men to influence on policymaking, planning and decision-making.
To this end, the Department of Economic and Technical Cooperation (DETC) within the Ministry of Finance, Planning, Economic Development and Physical Development, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development, Housing and Community Empowerment and GIZ, hosted a 2-day workshop on “Gender Sensitivity for Climate Finance Project Writing”.
During the opening remarks delivered by Titus Antoine on behalf of Patricia Clark, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Finance said, “Through the Gender Equality Policy and Action Plan, the government recognises and integrates the different and complementary roles of men and women into policies and strategies on climate change, disaster management and natural resource development, and the building of a ‘green economy’.
The workshop, which was opened to some 40 participants, was facilitated by gender and development consultant, Dr Rawwida Baksh. Participants included representatives from the divisions within the Government of Grenada which are likely to develop climate change adaptation projects, such as Health, Agriculture, Energy, Forestry and Fisheries, etc., as well as representative of statutory bodies and the private sector, and representatives from the civil society.
The objective of this workshop was to enable relevant stakeholders to mainstream gender equality into project proposal writing for climate financing.
The Getting Grenada GCF ready (3G) project is co-funded by the Green Climate Fund and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Grenadian Ministry of Finance, Planning, Economic Development & Physical Development partners with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
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