GGCA Gender and Climate Change Training Manual - Women's ...

steadfastly to the gender myths about women, their role and participation in the
economy (Box 7). Therefore, it is not surprising that these issues should continue
to dominate within climate change finance at all levels. It is not uncommon that
the private sector does not pay attention to gender issues at all. Thus the market
tends to ignore the impacts of its actions on women’s land-use options, incomes
and livelihoods, food affordability and the related cost of living including the
price of land. This, unfortunately, is also true of World Bank-implemented projects,
despite the tremendous amount of research that the Bank has undertaken on
gender and development.
Invariably, it is the case that climate change financing occurs in a
context in which, even when it does consider women, they are still seen as
vulnerable groups instead of major environmental and agricultural producers
in the world. Unfortunately, the myths of the male farmers, the male business
owner and the male head of household continue to dominate the imagination
of climate change financing decision makers.
So, for example, in the case of financing mechanisms such as REDD, it is
important to undertake gender and social impact assessment in order to make
sure that women do not lose their ownership and control of land and forests.
A key goal built into such projects must be that they, at worse, do no harm by
displacing and dispossessing women and indigenous people from their traditional
patterns of access and control of these resources. At best, such projects should
aim to enhance women’s and men’s economic and social status.
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In the case of the carbon markets, the inherent assumption is a level
playing field in which women and men have the same carbon footprints. So the
issue of equity of burden sharing does not arise. But equity of burden sharing
is quite a weighty issue as it is well known that women and indigenous people
have smaller ecological footprints. Instruments must be devised that take this into
account. This could include, for example, governmental incentives such as tax
breaks, grants and outright set-aside programmes for women and for indigenous
groups. Within the context of the market, the pooling of funds to create womencentred
funding instruments would be a step in the right direction. However,
such innovations will only arise from greater awareness of, and education and
training on, the dynamics of the carbon markets, its functioning and impacts as
well as its opportunities and constraints.
Module 7