Gender and climate change in the Mekong

The NDF Board has approved a EUR 2.0 million grant to support, in co-operation with Asian Development Bank (ADB), a project that will support strengthen gender-conscious work on climate change policies and projects through capacity building, pilot projects and knowledge management.

In combating climate change women have an important role as agents of change in relation to both mitigation and adaptation, as their responsibilities in households and communities give them a position to contribute to livelihood strategies adapted to changing environmental realities. Accordingly, by empowering women as managers of resources such as water, energy and waste, both local and global environmental concerns can be addressed.  In addition, women are a large and important part of the local communities best positioned to identify projects that meet local needs and priorities. However, women’s groups are often excluded from the decision making process due to inter alia lack of knowledge and support. 

The project will focus on capacity building and policymaking on national and sub-national levels in the targeted countries and will involve government agencies, women’s groups and NGOs. Training and support will be provided to women’s groups to facilitate their equal access to the decision making process. In addition, three pilot projects will be carried out to function as a link between hands-on climate change mitigation work and the development of carbon finance related policies. Within the pilots, methods for increasing women’s participation in the dissemination of low carbon technologies will be developed as well as tools and mechanisms to access climate financing. To disseminate lessons learned and to assist in identifying new projects a regional knowledge hub will be established.