Relevance and promising measurement approaches:
Where communities face slow-onset events, such as rising sea levels or increasing droughts and desertification, some respond by migrating. Women, particularly poor and marginalized women, are far more likely to be ‘trapped’ at home. In the flood-prone Kurigram District of Bangladesh, for example, many female headed households lack the resources to migrate.
Migration policies could be reviewed for gender inclusion, including support for female-headed households that remain behind. In addition, the Global Compact on Migration (December 2018) offers an opportunity to track progress. Specific displacement numbers can be compiled from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) annual Global Report on Internal Displacement and their database, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), and the reports released on Relief Web.
Relevance and promising measurement approaches:
The impact of climate change will be experienced acutely and increasingly in the poorest regions of the world, where women grow a significant proportion of the food on the most marginal land with less access to inputs such as seeds, fertilisers and water. In Viet Nam, for example, it has been found that female headed households report 20% lower rice yields than male-headed households as a result of limited water supplies. According to the FAO in 2011, if women’s agricultural activities were supported on an equal basis with men’s, global agricultural production would increase by 10-14%, decreasing the population of those going hungry by 100 million.
FAO undertook a ten-country exercise to pilot the methodology for collecting data on SDG Indicator 5.a.2 (Proportion of countries where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control), with countries expected to report on this indicator every two years starting from 2018.
Relevance and promising measurement approaches:
Women and men often have different perceptions of climate change, and engaging them both makes it possible to harness diverse knowledge and experiences. Women’s participation can lead to better environmental outcomes, but this is difficult to measure.
The IUCN Global Gender Office undertook a gender audit on 192 national energy frameworks from 37 countries, which identifies the involvement of women’s ministries and organizations. In addition, references to women’s participation in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) could be assessed alongside the assessment of gender inclusion, and could be expanded to Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), in conjunction with partners such as WEDO already working in this area. Alternatively, countries could be surveyed, via their gender focal points, for their participation policies as part of a gender action plan. This information could be supplemented by data collection from women’s organizations on the impact of such policies.