Climate vulnerability assessment methodologies in the water, forest, and agriculture sectors through a gendered lens

Background

Natural resource management is one of the central drivers of proactive change in watershed development programmes in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. It enables poverty alleviation, diversifies income, lessens the indebtedness of farmers, increases food security, and more generally supports actions that lead towards an improvement of the environment. But increasing population growth and the resultant pressure on the environment to maintain and increase food production, fodder, water, and other goods and services has led to a significant amount of depletion and lowered resilience of natural resource systems.

In such circumstances, any detrimental change in an ecosystem’s ability to provide goods and services (e.g. as with climatic change) is disproportionately felt in poorer households, particularly women-headed households and marginalized groups/communities. Women (across all socioeconomic groups) who take on a disproportionate burden of securing household food, water and fuel requirements, for instance, are at a clear disadvantage and bear the brunt of negative environmental impacts. Women lack access to and control over natural and agricultural resources predominantly because of structural barriers that privilege men. Consequently, the broader, sustainable, equitable success of proactive resource management initiatives is hindered from the very start.

Unfortunately, the realities of power relations that result in differential access and control over resources are often unnoticed or disregarded by development professionals. Thus, there is an urgent need to integrate gender and socially sensitive/responsive approaches across stakeholder groups to account for these systemic inadequacies. Stakeholders include policymakers, practitioners, and community members, including women and men from different socio-cultural and economic groups. Inclusiveness will be essential to break the aforementioned barriers; a gendered lens in resource and vulnerability assessments, as well as planning and implementation, will better guide and orient the identification, priority setting, and targeting of beneficial outcomes for the environment and society.

The proposed workshop is intended to strengthen the capacity of professionals to develop and deliver gender responsive and transformative programming. The workshop will also provide a reflexive platform for knowledge integration, application, and communication. Through this forum, our intention is to create a window of opportunity where complex issues relating to social and gender structures, attitudes, and practices are explored in developing innovative management solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

About the workshop

This capacity-building workshop will frame gender and social issues within the context of natural resource management activities that are affected by climatic change. We will focus on the deeper challenges faced by participants in their work and highlight the numerous and unequal effects that normalized practices may have upon marginalized groups. Within this context, we will use gender as the common thread when discussing natural resource planning and management to highlight and integrate gender and social concerns.

In particular, we will discuss the utilization of “assessment” methodologies, applied in natural resource planning and management, and focus on outcomes and impacts regarding gender. Assessment methods are diverse and highly flexible, allowing for multiple entry points, but care must be taken in tailoring them to the needs of stakeholders. We will review a diverse range of such tools and underscore how gender can become a focal point of their cultivation and application.

Objectives

Gender-focused objectives

• Understand the linkages between gender and social differentials within the water, forest, and agriculture sectors
• Enhance understanding of risks and vulnerabilities from a gender lens
• Explore how gender and social intersectionality perpetuates inequalities and exclusion
• Build capacity and skills on gender tools and methods of data collection, analysis, and planning

Technical assessment tools

• Increase stakeholders’ ability to understand the variety of assessment tools and the context in which they are used globally, their benefits, and their limits. This will include discussions on risk assessment, impact assessment (social and environmental), vulnerability, adaptation and resilience assessments, and other assessment models, including those specific to gender.
• Enhance the capacity of stakeholders to curate the wide variety of assessment tools and choose the most relevant methodology for their specific project application
• Enhance the capacity of stakeholders to tailor assessment methodologies to meet specific objectives

Participants

The training will enhance the capacity of professionals – foresters, hydrologists, engineers, agriculturalists – from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. A total of 15 professionals will participate in the capacity-building training programme.

Methodology

The training workshop will be conducted through daily, three-hour online sessions for a period of five days in addition to two 2-hour sessions. Additional material will be available online. The training will follow the principles of adult learning hosted through Microsoft Teams. Participants will learn about multiple assessment methods that are used globally across various management levels. The gendered perspective adopted in social impact assessment (SIA), gender impact assessment (GIA), Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), and gender assessment and analysis tools and methods will help anchor the field realities experienced among the participants.

To apply

The application has been closed.

Application deadline: 25 Jan 2020 (5 pm, Nepali Standard Time, UTC+05:45)

Successful candidates notified by: 27 Jan 2020

Eligibility: foresters, hydrologists, engineers, agriculturalists from the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Total number of selected applicants from the open call: 5-8

Expected outcomes

• Enhanced understanding of gender and identity and how this links to access, control, and use of natural resources
• The knowledge and capacity to apply and use gender and social analytical tools and methods to integrate these within technical subjects and sectors
• A broader awareness of the assessment tools, data, and methodologies that are available to consider social and environmental issues

Agenda

All timings are in Nepal Standard Time (UTC+05:45).

Further information

Workshop coordinator

Aditya Bastola, Gender Specialist, ICIMOD

Kanchan Shrestha, Programme Coordinator, Koshi Basin Initiative, ICIMOD

Logistics

Nishikant Gupta, Programme Officer, Koshi Basin Initiative, ICIMOD

Govinda Shrestha, Senior Programme Associate, Koshi Basin Initiative, ICIMOD

Resource persons

Follow the event on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with the hashtags #climatevulnerability #genderlens.