Gender, Climate change and County Development and planning

11 February 2015

Gender and climate change in CIDPs

• Gender, women and climate change have been recognzised by majority of CIDPs in varying degrees

• Key issues of concern:– Inadequate knowledge (low appreciation)and

capacity /expertise for GM/CM– Inadequate data-documented evidence of impacts of

climate and differentiated impacts of climate change on women and men

– Few interventions, or failure to target – Confusion

Climate mainstreaming projectMain objective: to provide county decision-makers and practitioners with necessary awareness, capacities and skills to adapt their development policies, programmes and budgetary processes to climate change and therefore become more resilient.

Target counties: Nakuru, Kirinyaga and Kajiado

Main Activities • raise awareness of the importance of incorporating gender and climate

change and its implication on development efforts• Training and capacity building of the County staff – executive and county

assembly• Advocate and lobby for mainstreaming of gender and climate change in the

county development planning processes • Development of climate change mainstreaming tool for decision makers and

practitioners• Experience sharing among the 3 counties• Strengthening the role of NSA - for objective and effective engage with the

county governments

Climate change mainstreaming

• Climate Change Mainstreaming: integrating considerations of climate change into policy-making, budgeting, implementation and monitoring processes at national, sector and sub-national levels (UNDP-UNEP, 2011).

• In this case, county development planning processes

• Making it part of the dominant thinking, policies, programmes

Why Climate change mainstreaming• Kenya’s economy is susceptible to significant disruption from

extreme climate events such as floods and droughts (NCCSR) loss of infrastructure, lives and livelihoods among others.

• Climate change impacts are distributed differently among counties and genders

• The severity will depend on the county’s capacity to cope with the impacts.

• Huge social, economic costs of CC impacts – it is estimates economic losses due to climate change will be 3% of GDP by 2030. The El Niño–La Niña floods and droughts from 1997-2000 cost an estimated KES 290 billion or 14 percent of GDP for the period. Climate variability and degradation of water resources cost Kenya at least KES 3.3 billion annually (SEI).

• Meeting the V 2030 and other SD goals

sustainable development (SD)

• SD is development that meets the needs of the present without Compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Bruntland,1992

• The overarching objectives of SD are Poverty reduction, Changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and Managing the natural resource base of economic and social development.

• SD recognizes interdependence of between environment society and economy –(the latter 2 depend on environment)

• Aims to use a holistic approach to find solutions that deliver benefits for minimising negative impacts.

1. Environm

ent

2. Society

3. Economy

Why gender and climate change

• The 5th IPCC report on Adaptation and Mitigation refers to the need to address the Gender Gaps, the need to re-examine Sustainable Development and Equity with gender in mind, the need to address Social Economic and Ethical Concepts and Methods in a gender sensitive manner

• The dominant perspectives – patriarchal mindset for determining solutions to climate change, the one size fits all approach and lack of sensitivity

• Feminization of poverty (70% of the 1.3 billion poor are women)- the gendered division of labor shows clearly the differences in how climate change impacts women and men, and their respective capacities for coping

Insecure livelihoods:i.e. reduced

crop yield

Increased burden on household:i.e. more time

collecting water, food, fuel

Less time for education,

income-generation

Unsustainable coping strategies:i.e. deforestation;migration; conflict

Environmental instabilities:i.e. drought/

floods

Example of exacerbated cycle of poverty for

women & men

Why CC - Exacerbates the Cycle of Poverty

Why gender & CC – It makes business common sense

• Risk= Hazard x Vulnerability by Gender /Coping Capacity by Gender • Vulnerability: circumstances that

make one susceptible to the hazard - women’s roles, lack of resources make them vulnerable• Capacity - capabilities people have in

lessening the impact of, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters• Disaster risk reduction - The concept

and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyze and manage the causal factors of disasters

DRR and Gender Equality

How• Multi disciplinary and multi-pronged approach –

NEMA, WRMA, KMS, Agriculture, CSOs, • Entry point – Environment Committee• Multi-stakeholder dialogues and round tables

– Emerging issues : degradation and encroachment into the natural resources

– Water scarcity - drying up rivers– Droughts becoming endemic – Inadequate access to climate information by farmers

• Short to medium -term action plan towards gender & climate smart county development actions – Awareness at local level– Community adaptation– Policy formulation

Getting a buy-in by enabling the target groups appreciate role of CC in achieving their development goals ; but also understand it does not always have cost implications, but tends to result to greater savings

Results• Multi-sectoral approach – all key sectors came together – WRMA, KMS, • 76 county officials trained made aware of the need for mainstreaming

gender and climate change in county development.• Nakuru Executive initiated joint meetings with county assembly and other

stakeholders on environmental issues• Kajiado county developed a charcoal burning and sand harvesting policy.• County’s began to see the need to manage solid waste sustainably.• Demand for trainings on gender and climate change - Kirinyaga MCAs paid

for their own training on both CC and GM• The MCAs of Kirinyaga vowed to develop a physical planning policy to

assist to natural resource management• Increased participation of women and men in PSP• Stakeholder meetings on climate change issues by the county• Gender responsive CIDPs – kirinyaga, kajiado,

Results cont.

• Climate change mainstreaming guidelines -intensive, demanding and very educative process but participatory

• To provide a step by step guide on how to mainstream climate change in county development planning proccesses and functions policies, budgetary processes and programs.

• By relevant Ministry, Environmental committee, Experts, and CSOs/NSA

Key Steps

• Preliminary Assessment and situational analysis • Information sharing, dissemination and Awareness raising

and partnership building• Policy formulation -preliminary assessment• County Development Planning -sectoral plans, spatial plans,

city/municipal plans• Programming- mitigation and adaptation opportunities • Resource Allocation – for CC + gender programs• Monitoring and Evaluation-baseline , targets, indicators,

reporting and feedback mechanisms, capacities and systems

In Nyandarua- local adaptation prog.

• Awareness and training of local• Women leadership circles• Knowledge, skills sharing and

reducing time & workload– Bio-gas production@ HH– Silage production– Rain water harvesting– Diversification of crops, water

sources– High value crop production

(e.g. Strawberry)– Ecosystem Based agriculture

• Dialogues with county governments

• Access to markets – addressing the value chain challenges

Investment models

• Bankable projects to attract private sector• KES 500 million investments in nine counties • Improving access ------ Energy link• Utilities pay 30-50% revenues to KPLC• Thika – mini hydro plant, Nakuru – solar panel

investment• Bomet County water investment strategy• Link IEWM climate work, investment planning,

good governance and resource mobilization

The challenge• Many sectors/players that are not talking to each other• Governance, the weak position of the Ministry making it

difficult to exercise its role as a prefect over other sectors.• Climate change should be treated as a cross-sectoral issue

and be should be accounted for in every policy, plan and M & E of the County. But there lack adequate mechanisms

• Inadequate human and financial capacity for mainstream climate change and gender equality

• Political threats and conflicts of interest at the county level• Lack of climate related resilient investment programmes

Lessons learnt

• Critical to CC is awareness and capacity development for climate smart development plans, programmes and policies

• Strengthening environmental governance – data, skilling, collaboration is needed

• It’s about changing approaches, for example, ensuring regulations and standards (e.g. building codes) to reflect climate change risks

• Development of county investment plans to guide mainstreaming

• Entry points are key• Being practical makes sense to all recipients of training• Landuse planning is key in managing climate change