gencap

Gender and Climate Adaptation Policy

Making climate and development policies more gender responsive

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About the Programme

Gender and State Climate Change Action Plans in India : Research and policies to enable poor women and rural communities adapt to climate change.

Growing climate literature reveals how climate change affects women first and worst, that women are a key part of the solution and respond to it differently from men. Yet, government’s climate plans and adaptation practices by non-government actors and the scientific community do not reflect this gender differentiation.

This evidence-based policy advocacy research on gender and climate change adaptation is a pilot attempt to influence at least four State-level governments in India to mainstream gender into their draft State-level Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCCs), through which India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) is to be implemented.

The focus of this project is on adaptation policies and practices for climate-sensitive agriculture-based livelihoods. This area also forms the core of the State Action Plans (SAPCCs). While the NAPCC identifies poor women as the worst affected group, it fails to address the gender dimensions in its eight Missions, four of which relate to agriculture-related adaptation. The draft State Plans also lack gender analysis and scientific documentation of local adaptation practices, both of which will be addressed by this project.

This policy research assesses, from a gender lens, State-level Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCCs) of Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. It covers three vulnerable agro-climatic zones – the flood-prone area in Gorakhpur, East Uttar Pradesh; the drought-prone region of Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh and the saline, cyclone-prone Sunderbans region in West Bengal. The Anantapur learnings also inform the drought-prone Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh.

Policy advocacy in this project is being done around three axis of enquiry: 

1. gender analysis of adaptation-related policies, plans, programmes and schemes; 

2. gender analysis of public provisioning of adaptation-related government programmes and schemes and 

3. primary-level scientific documentation, with gender analysis, of approximately six emerging and viable adaptation models in the three vulnerable agro-climatie zones. This research uses learning from ‘best practices’ adaptation interventions on the ground to inform policy recommendations which help incorporate gender components in the State Plans of the selected States.

Outputs of this research are being disseminated widely through policy-level meetings and rroundtables, policy briefs, journal articles, popular media and this evidence-based advocacy-focused, interactive website.

This research builds on Alternative Future’s earlier research report, ‘Engendering the Climate for Change: Policies and Practices for Gender-just Adaptation’ which flagged key gender-responsive concerns in the NAPCC and in adaptive interventions rolled out by grassroots organisations in the three vulnerable agro-climatic zones.

For more information contact: afmailbox@gmail.com

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