March 2005
by Yianna Lambrou
Gender and Development Service
FAO Gender and Population Division
This information factsheet aims to highlight the importance of considering gender differences in The Rio Conventions. It offers some recommendations towards accomplishing this goal in the context of FAO’s work.
The United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (UNCBD), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), known as the Rio Conventions, are the three main international legally-binding agreements for sustainable development. They represent the legal outcome of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
UNCBD UNFCCC UNCCD |
The original drafters of the Three Environmental Conventions did not necessarily consider how and whether gender would make any difference in their implementation. Even though they were addressing environmental management and solutions to be undertaken by communities, they did not immediately seize upon gender as an important tool for understanding how men and women dealt with these issues.
In the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) the only mention of women (not gender) is in the Preamble, which states: “{we recognize} also the vital role that women play in the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and affirm the need for the full participation of women at all levels of policymaking and implementation for biological diversity conservation, …”.
To strengthen this commitment, it is important to confirm once again that local-level biodiversity is maintained through the knowledge and know-how of both women and men. In fact, because of gender-based roles in rural livelihoods, women and men acquire and transmit different and complementary knowledge. For this reason, failure to target both sexes in biodiversity conservation results inevitably in a loss of knowledge of local and international relevance, as well as producing a gender bias in policies and programmes which may be detrimental to the functions that women or men perform. Women concentrate mostly on subsistence agriculture as well as household-related tasks such as caring for family members and preparing food. Thus, failure to integrate women’s biodiversity knowledge in each of these functions has impact on household-level food security and nutrition.
The second Convention, The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) does not adopt neither a gender perspective nor consider women and men as specific stakeholders in the Convention.
Even though at first glance it may seem far fetched that gender and climate change are related, rising sea levels, increasing aridity and frequency of natural disasters as well as other ensuing factors, erode the quality of the natural resource base. A decrease in agricultural productivity can be expected. Climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and creates new ones, thus making the fight against poverty still more difficult.
The effects of climate change affect women and men, sometimes in the same way, sometimes differently. Degradation of water sources is usually a consequence of drought and natural disasters especially in a context of poverty. Because of their roles in ensuring the household water supply and being in charge of domestic chores, women are more exposed to diseases which thrive in such conditions such as diarrhea and cholera. Extreme weather effects such as flooding, landslides, and storms, cause death and injury, may affect women and men differently, depending on the means at the disposal of each to ensure their own safety and to re-establish their lives after the disaster. In Bangladesh for example, cultural constraints on women’s mobility hinder access to shelter and health care in the context of cyclones and floods (Rowshan 1992).
The involvement of women and men has proven to be key to the efficiency of solution finding decision-making, and to the implementation process for long-term and short-term responses to disasters and climate change.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the one Convention which has mainstreamed the concept of gender by recognizing the role of women in ensuring rural livelihoods and by explicitly encouraging the equal participation of women and men in capacity building. It is through the full participation of local people, particularly at the local level, especially women and youth, with the cooperation of non-governmental and local organizations that the efforts to combat desertification can be most effective.
Desertification is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations and occurs because dryland ecosystems, which cover over one third of the world's land area, are extremely vulnerable to over-exploitation and inappropriate land use. Poverty, conflict, deforestation, overgrazing, and bad irrigation practices can all undermine land fertility. Over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification. In addition, about one billion people in over one hundred countries are at risk. These people include many of the world's poorest, most marginalized, and politically weak citizens (FAO/ UNCCD website).
Recognizing the link between desertification and poverty, the UNCCD stresses the importance of a “bottom-up participatory approach in identifying, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating projects that combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought”. The UNCCD approach thus seeks to combine science and technology with local knowledge, to come up with effective solutions for sustainable dryland development.
Given the intimate relationship between desertification and poverty, a local-level gender-sensitive understanding of livelihood roles is all the more relevant for finding solutions. Whatever the difference in roles may be, the specific targeting of sex and age groups in needs assessment and solution design and implementation is an essential factor of programme success.
The majority of women farmers do not have secure land rights – Without land rights women have difficulties ensuring theirs and their families livelihoods, accessing credit, or even having a measure of economic independence should they be widowed. Women’s productive assets are generally of lesser value than those of men – This limits their potential for expansion and increases their vulnerability in the face of shocks such as sudden shortage in food supplies, in income, crop failure, natural disasters, etc. Women in rural areas worldwide have lower educational levels than rural men - Illiteracy reduces their possibilities for gaining wage employment, which could be an important source of alternative income. Women farmers’ participation in farmer’s organizations and commercial networks tend to be mediated through male relations – This can lead to their needs being neglected or overruled. It is difficult for poor rural women to access financial services – This prevents women from creating new employment opportunities, as well responding efficiently and quickly in emergencies especially in post-conflict situations, after natural disasters, or when seeking alternative income generating activities after losses due to desertification or the effects of climate change. Women and men do not participate usually on an equal basis in community organizations – The absence of gender balance in decision-making for the management of common natural resources , such as water , forests and fallow areas means that women farmers’ rights and needs can be overseen. Food security and agricultural policies risk overlooking gender issues – This can lead to missing the role women play in rural areas and not developing suitable policies for them. |
Lessons learnt during the ten years following the UNCED point towards the fact that implementation will be successful only if the approach is both cross-sectoral, and participatory. FAO is committed to an interdisciplinary approach, which includes a gender perspective. The Strategic Framework for FAO 2000-2015 states that “interdisciplinary approaches are prerequisites to successful and sustainable rural development”. In order to respond institutionally to this prerequisite, FAO identified 16 Priority Areas for Interdisciplinary Action (PAIA). One cross-cutting PAIA is “Gender Mainstreaming”. The work of this PAIA is guided by the Gender and Development Service (SDW), which participates in the Inter-Departmental Working Groups (IDWG) related to each of the PAIAs. Furthermore, FAO approved the “Gender and Development Plan of Action (2002-2007)” to mainstream gender into every aspect of FAO’s work.
Biodiversity - Under its mandate, FAO focuses on the conservation and sustainable utilization of food and other agricultural products, and is already active in the implementation of several biological diversity-related instruments of relevance to food and agriculture. The IDWG on Biodiversity consists of representatives from each FAO departments working on issues relevant to biological diversity, and meets regularly to provide an interdepartmental focus on cross- cutting issues.
Climate Change - One of FAO’s roles is to help member countries reduce their vulnerability to climate change and improve their capacity to estimate amounts of - and reduce - greenhouse gas emissions. Technical activities include studies aimed at improving understanding of climate-agriculture systems and collection of background information.
Desertification – Through the establishment of an IDWG in 1993 and a PAIA on desertification in 2004, FAO has implemented numerous projects and programmes which combine the objectives of food security and combating land degradation and desertification. Such activities range from local development projects, to policy advice to governments; training and capacity building at all levels; and cover topics such as soil and water conservation, agroforestry, promotion of sustainable energy sources, rehabilitation of agriculture biodiversity and increasing food production at the household level.
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The necessity of adopting cross-sectoral approaches to policy implementation and the value-added of a participatory approach have proven to be fundamental to the successful implementation of the Conventions. Participation and gender are intimately linked: gender intersects with all issues.
Enhancing the gender-responsiveness of the Rio Conventions depends ultimately on the political will of both governments and institutions. Political commitment from countries in the North and the South that are linked by international cooperation will ensure the full implementation of the three Conventions. FAO can play a role in ensuring that the Conventions are sensitive to the needs of both men and women.
_____________________________________________________________________FAO Web sites
Environmental conventions and agreements www.fao.org/sd/en1_en.htm
Gender and Development, Plan of Action www.fao.org/sd/2002/PE0103_en.htm
LinKS project www.fao.org/sd/en1_en.htm
Gender and Population Division
Sustainable Development Department
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla – 00100 Rome Italy
Tel: (+39) 06 5705 4550
Fax: (+39) 06 5705 2004
www.fao.org/sd
www.fao.org/gender
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