Issue
The Caribbean is on the frontline of climate change, and the degree to which people are affected by the impact is shaped by many factors. It is vital that policy solutions consider the complex array of vulnerabilities and include less heard voices in decision-making processes.
Project partners
How we are helping
In this project, the Foundation is applying intersectionality principles to support gender responsive strategies and facilitating civic voice access to climate change policy making spaces.
About the project
Understanding the intersectional needs and impacts of climate change on women and vulnerable communities and galvanising their voices to engage in climate change policy processes is part of the Participatory Governance and Gender team’s capacity development programme for 2018-2021.
In phase one of this project, a comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted relationship between gender and climate change in Caribbean society was undertaken. Less than a year after the Caribbean was hit by two devastating hurricanes, the Foundation in partnership with the UNDP’s Global Environmental Facility, convened an exploratory discussion with more than 40 civil society colleagues from all Caribbean Commonwealth countries in June 2018 in Barbados. The discussion set out to understand gender intersectionality issues regarding climate change impacts, current civil society programming around climate change and to share knowledge and determine ways to advance civil society’s policy advocacy around gender and climate change.
The in-depth exploration of the intersections of gender and climate change is accompanied and supported by the Institute of Gender and Development Studies of the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Participants in the first phase of this process understood that climate change impacts women, marginalised people and communities more significantly than others.
In phase two of the project, civic voice capacities are being enhanced to mainstream gender analysis in its programming strategies and increase their understanding of possible channels to engage in policy processes. The Foundation is facilitating dialogues with decision-makers and institutions to explore how best to work together, and to share findings from its analysis to influence policy negotiations.
Project Partners
Launched in 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) is a global corporate programme, funded by GEF, implemented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on behalf of the GEF partnership and executed by United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
The IGDS was first established in 1993 as the Centre for Gender and Development Studies. In 2008 the UWI upgraded the Centre to achieve Institute status, able to grant its own degrees. The Major in Gender and Development was also introduced at Mona in 2008. Today the Institute is a well-established multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary department of the University of the West Indies (UWI) with four (4) Units; a Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU) located in the UWI's Regional Headquarters and three campus units: The Mona Unit (Jamaica); the Nita Barrow Unit (Barbados) and the St. Augustine Unit (Trinidad & Tobago).
Project Updates
Lessons learnt from the second Caribbean climate change and gender conversation are pulled into focus when a delegate visits Jamaica's coastline.
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