Women and Gender Issues
Placer l’égalité des sexes au cœur des stratégies de protection sociale en Afrique subsaharienne
Apr 2022
Working Paper
La protection sociale occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans l’agenda du développement social en Afrique subsaharienne. Des systèmes de protection sociale complets peuvent contribuer à éliminer la pauvreté et à réduire les inégalités stimuler une activité productive et la croissance économique et créer une résilience face aux crises multiples et récurrentes en particulier s’ils fonctionnent en tandem avec d’autres politiques sociales et du marché du travail. Récemment les pays de la région ont largement utilisé les instruments de protection sociale pour faire face aux retombées économiques et sociales de la pandémie de COVID-19. Dans ce contexte cette note analyse dans quelle mesure et de quelles manières les pays de la région intègrent l’égalité des sexes et l’autonomisation des femmes dans leurs efforts de protection sociale tirant parti d’une base de données unique de stratégies nationales de protection sociale de 30 pays de la région y compris 14 en Afrique de l’Ouest et centrale et 16 en Afrique de l’Est et australe. Elle constate que si un nombre important de stratégies reconnaissent les risques et les vulnérabilités liés au genre peu incluent des actions spécifiques pour y faire face. Cette note s’achève par un ensemble de recommandations pour une intégration accrue des préoccupations relatives à l’égalité des sexes dans les efforts visant à mettre en place des systèmes nationaux de protection sociale.
Multidimensional Poverty Index with a Focus on Women: A proposal for Latin America and the Caribbean
Jun 2023
Working Paper
This paper aims to draw attention to the need to create an innovative measure that allows us to devel into women's poverty and its specificities. Only by performing an accurate analysis of women’s multidimensional poverty will it be possible to respond to their specific needs identify the bottlenecks that prevent them from escaping poverty and make policy recommendations that are gender-sensitive in that regard. This paper presents a proposal for a Multidimensional Poverty Index with a focus on women in Latin America and the Caribbean including results for 10 countries: Bolivia Chile Colombia Costa Rica El Salvador Honduras Mexico Panama Dominican Republic and Uruguay. Estimates show that 28 percent of women in the analysed countries are multidimensionally poor. Uruguay and Chile exhibit the lowest incidence below 10 percent while in Honduras and El Salvador more than 62 percent of adult women are multidimensionally poor.
Towards Resilient and Equitable Development in Costa Rica with Women and Nature at the Forefront
Jun 2023
Working Paper
In recent years the Government of Costa Rica has recognized the importance of promoting gender equality and women empowerment in the conservation and sustainable use of forests. Costa Rica recognizes that promoting gender equality implies not only mentioning the issue as a priority or as a principle but also prioritizing the identification of relevant gender inequalities and proposing concrete actions to address them. This brief examines how the Government of Costa Rica with support from UNDP is addressing prevalent gender gaps empowering women in the environmental sector and comprehensively integrating gender into environmental policies governance and finance. This in turn has resulted in an innovative and gender-responsive offer of environmental incentives in the country that are scaling up results at an influential level simultaneously increasing women’s economic empowerment promoting sustainable use of forests and combating climate change.
Household and Care Work, Crisis, and Gender-Unequal Economies: A Samoan Perspective
Dec 2022
Working Paper
Small Island Development States’ (SIDS) natural features relative isolation typical dependence on external resources and limited domestic capacity to absorb shocks make many of them especially vulnerable to crises including climate-change related environmental disasters and health emergencies. This policy brief argues that one such crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified and perpetuated dynamics of gender inequality in Samoa a Pacific SIDS. We posit that care and household work the burden of which falls disproportionately on women is a central nexus in these dynamics which in turn affect Samoa’s ability to cope with and spring back from this crisis. Based on this Samoan experience we argue that care and household work deserves special attention from policymakers especially in SIDS because of its potentially central importance for gender-equity as well as for crisis-resilience and recovery.
Synergies in Jointly Addressing Climate Change, Health Equity and Gender Equality
Feb 2023
Working Paper
Climate change is already impacting negatively on the health and well-being of individuals across the globe and this burden is likely to become more important and debilitating over time. Due to deep-rooted systemic inequalities the growing negative consequences disproportionately affect diverse women girls and lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. The same structural and cultural factors that render them more vulnerable also limit their meaningful participation in mitigation and adaptation planning and marginalize their needs. This policy brief argues the case that to enable gender-transformative intersectional and rights-based approaches climate change gender and other social determinants of health must therefore be considered and addressed jointly where possible. A systems-based approach can improve the understanding of important synergies and co-benefits feedback loops trade-offs and unanticipated consequences that are critical to priority-setting and effective responses. It can also foster critically needed cross-sectoral collaboration among the policymakers and advocates who work on climate health and gender equality.
Policy Implications of the Gender, Inclusion and Climate Change Nexus: Experiences from Sri Lanka
Apr 2023
Working Paper
Development discourse has long acknowledged the disproportionate impact of climate change and its implications for women and other marginalized social groups and has called for gender-responsive and inclusive climate action in international national and local arenas. However some countries are still pursuing development trajectories that fall short on gender sensitivity and social inclusion worsening the impacts on women and marginalized groups while hindering resilience-building efforts. Given Sri Lanka’s heightened climate vulnerability and the exacerbated climate risks on women and other socially excluded demographics and responding to the call for action in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development this brief examines the level to which Sri Lanka’s development and climate policies and strategies integrate a gender and social inclusion approach in comparison to regional peers. Drawing on this work this brief then provides recommendations to improve the climate policy landscape of Sri Lanka including the gender-responsiveness of such work to inform the country’s ongoing National Climate Change Policy revisions.
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