A validation workshop was held on the updated Climate Change Gender Action Plan (CcGAP) on Thursday at Six Seasons Hotel to share the updated CcGAP 2022 with a wide range of officials and practitioners in climate change and gender.
UN Women in partnership with Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT) under the leadership of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) with technical support from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), and Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research (C3ER) drove the update process, said a press release.
The first Climate Change Gender Action Plan (CcGAP) was produced in 2013 when the attempt was to align it with the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP 2009).
The MoEFCC took the initiative to revise it as a lot of advancements had happened ever since at the international and national levels, such as Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Paris Climate Agreement, Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan, Delta Plan, Perspective Plan, National Adaptation Plan (NAP).
The Climate Change and Gender Action Plan (CcGAP) needs to align with all these key drivers for climate change to make the plan effective and thus enhance the process of gender mainstreaming into the national policies, strategies, and sectoral plans.
Managing Director (Additional Secretary) of Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT), Nurun Naher Hena attended the event as chief guest.
Chaired by Diya Nanda, deputy country representative, UN Women, Nayoka Martinez Backstrom, first secretary, Environment and Climate Change, Embassy of Sweden, Raquibul Amin, country representative, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Md Khairuzzaman, director (Planning, Development, and Negotiation), Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT), and Dilruba Haider, program specialist, UN Women, spoke at the event.
Participants from the relevant government ministries and departments, development partners, UN agencies, INGOs, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), researchers, and academia attended the event.
Nurun Naher Hena said: “We need to develop action plans and toolkits like Climate Change Gender Action Plan to ensure development projects and policies related to climate change and other sectors are gender-responsive. That's how the gap with regard to gender integration into mainstreaming sectors like climate change can be addressed. In the CcGAP we have sector-specific gender action plans mentioning the relevant stakeholders that would be beneficial to ensure better collaboration and cohesion among the ministries and departments.”
Nayoka Martinez Backstrom said: “The updated Climate Change Gender Action Plan has proposed a number of indicators. An evidence-based monitoring mechanism would strengthen the process of tracking progress that would also enable the implementation of the action plans.”
Diya Nanda said: “Integration of sex-disaggregated data is critical to mainstream gender in the sector-specific policies and strategies. Women are disproportionately affected due to societal norms, systemic gender inequalities, reproductive obligations and so on. Therefore, collection of Sex, Age, and Disability Disaggregated Data (SADDD) in every aspect is crucial to address the different needs and vulnerabilities of different groups of marginalized people.”
