Date: Tuesday 9th November 2021

Time: 12:15 – 13:45 BST

Venue: UK Presidency Pavilion; COP26 Blue Zone, Glasgow

The UK Government and the Network of African Women Environmentalists (NAWE) hosted a panel discussion focused on the main outstanding matters surrounding climate action after COP26, with a forward focus on the UK’s COP
Presidency in the year ahead, and to the next incoming COP Presidency in Africa
and beyond.

The event provided a platform for a diverse set of speakers who shared
first-hand experience from the frontlines of climate change in Africa of projects
and technologies – both to mitigate and adapt to climate change – in Africa.

On Gender Day, COP26 turned its focus to the disproportionate climate impacts suffered by women and girls across the world.

“Climate change is sexist,” a US government official put it on Tuesday and 80 per cent of people displaced by climate change are women and children, according to UNFCC.

Countries pledged gender-sensitive climate policies and funding. Pledges for dedicated climate finance poured in, notably a $14 million (€12.1 million) commitment by the US to the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund and “$3 million investment to support women farmers in East Africa to adapt to climate impacts.”

There was new momentum from around the world to put gender at the forefront of climate action on Gender Day, as countries and non state actors set out gender and climate commitments, including:

• Bolivia committed to promote the leadership of women and girls, especially indigenous, Afro-Bolivian, community and rural women, through their involvement in sustainable development projects, as well as to reflect gender data in its Nationally Determined Contributions, and to work with UN Women to promote the use of gender breakdowns in official national statistics on environment and climate change.
• Canada to ensure that 80% of its $5.3 billion climate investments over the next five years targets gender equality outcomes.
• Ecuador committing to strengthen leadership, negotiation, and decision-making capacities within women’s organisations working on climate.
• Germany announcing a new Gender Strategy under its International Climate Initiative (IKI) which will promote gender-transformative approaches in international climate and biodiversity cooperation.
• Nigeria expanding on its Implementation Strategy for their National Gender and Climate Action Plan.
• Sweden announcing new measures to firmly embed gender equality within all their climate action, as mentioned in Sweden’s Climate Policy Action Plan.
• The UK setting out how £165 million in funding will address the dual challenges of gender inequality and climate change.
• The USA promoted gender equity and equality in responding to climate change as a priority of its National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality; investing at least $14 million of the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund toward gender-responsive climate programming; and investing more than $20 million towards initiatives to increase women’s economic opportunities in the clean energy sector, strengthen action on gender-based violence and the environment, address barriers to women’s land rights, and support women farmers in East Africa to adapt to climate impacts.

These announcements help build momentum internationally to drive implementation of the Gender Action Plan agreed at COP25, ahead of the sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) in March 2022 which will focus on gender equality in the context of climate change, the environment and disaster risk reduction.