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

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hand, women are often well positioned to manage risk due to their roles as
both users and managers of environmental resources, as economic providers,
and as care givers and community workers. For these reasons it is necessary to
identify and use gender-differentiated information, to ensure that risk reduction
strategies are correctly targeted at the most vulnerable groups and are
effectively implemented through the roles of both women and men” (UNISDR
2007, 5).
To support national governments in achieving the goals for risk reduction,
the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Secretariat
convenes global platforms (June 2007, June 2009) to monitor progress and discuss
emerging disaster threats, such as climate change.
2.4 Gender and sustainable development
At the international level, gender issues have been raised in numerous
summits and conferences, 30 and there is explicit reference to the rights of women
in a range of international instruments. 31 Among these have been a number of
global sustainable development agreements including Agenda 21, the WSSD
Plan of Implementation, the CBD and the UNCCD, which make commitments
on gender and women. The relationship between women and environment
has also arisen in relation to international agreements on women and gender
equality, such as the Beijing Platform for Action and its ten-year review, and the
Millennium Declaration.
2.4.1 Agenda 21
Agenda 21, which establishes a blueprint for sustainable development,
was adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development, in Río de Janeiro in 1992. It includes a complete chapter (24)
entitled “Global Action for Women towards Sustainable Development”,
which calls upon governments to make the necessary constitutional, legal,
administrative, cultural, social and economic changes in order to eliminate all
obstacles to women’s full involvement in sustainable development and in public
life.
30
These include: Children’s World Summit (New York, 1990); United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, (Río
de Janeiro, 1992); World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993); International Conference on Population and
Development (Cairo, 1994); World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995); Fourth World Conference on Women
(Beijing, 1995); Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Istanbul, 1996); World Summit on Food (Rome,
1996); and United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (Rome,
1998).
31
These include the Cairo Action Programme, Agenda 21, Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, Copenhagen
Action Plan, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), the Rome
Declaration on World Food Security, Rome Action Plan on World Food Security, and the Vienna Declaration and Programme
of Action which contains a whole section entitled: “The equal status and human rights of women”.