Investing in women’s climate resilience pivotal for achieving UN development goals
Chitral Times Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is grappled with myriad socio-economic and environmental challenges, ranging from soaring poverty, food insecurity, hunger, malnutrition, water pollution, unsafe sanitation and inadequate hygiene facilities to devastating impacts of climate change, with women major victims of these impacts. However, adequately investing in women development and empowerment initiatives could significantly help prepare these women to deal with these challenges and build their climate resilience.
This was stated by spokesperson of the Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination Muhammad Saleem Shaikh in context of the International Women’s Day marked on March 8 globally under the theme ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress’. Addressing the media on the sidelines of the Women March marked here on Friday, he said that the building climate resilience of women in the country through various policy-based initiatives has been prioritized in the all national policies and plans related to climate resilience building, and environmental sustainability.
The ministry official told media that Climate Change Gender Action Plan (ccGAP) was already being implemented to support inclusive policy dialogue, capacity development, and pilot projects for women by focusing on recognising gender equality as a core principle and inclusion of women in local and national level policy programmes and design. Hammered out by the ministry in support with the IUCN-Pakistan in 2022, the first ever such gender-focused national climate action plan is an overarching guiding framework with key objective to strengthen the resilience of women and girls in the face of climate-related impacts, while aiming to accelerate progress and support gender-responsive climate action plan, the ministry spokesperson Muhammad Saleem added.
Pakistan is currently ranked among the top 10 most vulnerable countries to the widespread and cross-sectoral adverse fallouts of climate change with women being major victims. “Despite possessing intimate local knowledge of common natural resources and being involvement in their use for meeting household needs, women have been always left out of the picture when decisions used to be made on various socio-economic policy initiatives. But, efforts have been boosted by the climate change ministry for mainstreaming women in national discourse on disaster risk reduction and climate resilience through mitigation and adaptation measures. So that, women are able to influence climate change decisions, and that, women and men are represented equally in all aspects as a way to increase its effectiveness,” said the ministry official Muhammad Saleem.
Talking about details of the ccGAP, he said that in the plan focuses on around the six priority sectors have been identified, namely: Agriculture and Food security, Forest and Biodiversity, Disaster Risk Reduction, Water Sanitation and Hygiene, Integrated Coastal Management and Energy and Transport. These priority sectors emphasises the need to increase the integration of gender considerations such as addressing women’s specific vulnerability to natural disasters, understanding women’s role in agriculture and food production, and supporting women entrepreneurs in the energy and transportation sectors as well as to increase climate-related resources that integrate gender priorities and reflect the needs of women and girls. he added.
The official told media further that in fact the various action plans had been put in place framed in the light of various actions proposed in ccGAP for leveraging and strengthening the full,, equal and meaningful participation and influence of women and girls where specific efforts must be made to amplify the voices and knowledge of marginalized women, including indigenous women, older women, women with disabilities, migrant women and those living in rural, remote, conflict and disaster-prone areas.
The ministry official said, “undoubtedly building climate-resilience of the women by engaging them into climate policymaking and policy implementations processes as well as enhancing investment in the women-focused climate risk management programmers and actions is an important ingredient in building climate resilience of the women. He said, while climate change was affecting everyone including men, women, elderly and children. Yet, not all of them are equally affected by devastating impacts of climate change. “Climate vulnerability is exacerbated by inequity and marginalization linked to gender, ethnicity, low income, and other social and economic factors,” he highlighted.
Women bear the most responsibility for managing efforts for household food, energy and water supplies in most of the developing countries including Pakistan. They also produce roughly 60 percent of the food in these countries he stressed and suggested that, “elevating women and girls as change makers or catalysts in their communities could also enable them to lead resilient, local, and rights-based solutions to climate adaptation.” The ministry official highlighted that various studies show that when women are not fully engaged in climate work, programs are unlikely to meet failure, putting women at greater risk of increased exposure to climate change impacts. Given the urgency and scale of the climate crisis, it was imperative to ensure that women are provided enabling environment to participate in developing and implementing climate solutions to the problems because of which they suffer, he said.
The ministry spokesperson Muahmmad Saleem said, “Given the realization of the importane of women’s engagement in managing climate risks, the national climate change policy recognises that there was an unprecedented opportunity and benefits in recognising and formalising women’s role in disaster management processes, right from preparedness to recovery. Doing so would improve the resilience of communities and people and also yield co-benefits for gender equality in general, as work by the World Bank has shown.” Half of the world’s population was comprised of women and girls, yet they remained mostly left out of the conversation when it came to building of the climate resilience of the communities. “Thus, if achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius was required, everyone, particularly women needs to heard and be on board, meaning more women and girls need to be empowered and involved in climate change and disaster risk management policies and actions,” he remarked. “This calls for the women, irrespective of their backgrounds, cultures, languages, to be involved at all stages – right from climate talks to forests and fields, especially in sectors and regions like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal hit hard by the devastating fallouts of the climate change.”
According to UN reports, Women make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force in developing countries including Pakistan. When provided with the same access to resources as men, women can increase their agricultural yields by 20 to 30 percent. This boost in productivity not only improves total agricultural output by 2.5 to 4 percent, but it can also help reduce world hunger by 12 to 17 percent. “Empowering women in agriculture could also lead to a positive impacts and support lasting benefits of climate adaptation in the farming sector. By providing them with access to suitable technology and resources, who plough the world’s most of the farming lands, we can achieve sustainable farming goals to achieve durable food security and resilience of the food sector to the climate shocks and mitigate rural poverty and unemployment,” the climate change ministry official Saleem Shaikh said.
He emphasized that the various UN and World Bank reports have concluded that building climate resilience in communities, involving women was unprecedented and yielded far-reaching positive impacts, resulting in communities’ durable resilience to the climate change-caused natural hazards. The ministry official highlighted, “Thus, by engaging women in community planning and disaster response efforts at all levels could lead to building stronger, more disaster-resilient and climate-safe communities that are better prepared to confront the exacerbating impacts of the global climate crisis.”
