Can Climate Finance Contribute to Gender Equity in Developing Countries?

Abstract

Climate finance helps mobilise additional development funds to help developing countries reduce CO 2 emissions and local communities adapt to changing climate. Increasingly, however, concerns have been raised about the implications of climate finance on gender equity. Drawing on the 'contextual-procedural-distributive' equity framework, this paper conducts an extensive review of literature on forest sequestration, climate-smart agriculture and disaster management. It indicates that the effectiveness of climate finance is constrained from a lack of awareness of the gender gap in access to land and capital. To maximise the impact of climate finance, it urges policy makers to tackle deeply rooted structural inequalities.

Institutional Perspectives of Climate-Smart Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review

“…About 26.3% (n = 36) emphasized on mitigation only [47,48,62], while 21.9% (n = 30) on both productivity and adaptation issues [42,63,64]. A relatively limited number of the publications combined productivity and mitigation pillars (6.6%, n = 9) [49,65,66]; adaptation and mitigation (2.9%, n = 4) [67][68][69][70]; and in adaptation alone (6.6%, n = 9) [71][72][73].…”

Can Social Innovation Address Africa’s Twin Development Challenges of Climate Change Vulnerability and Forced Migrations?

“…In the context of SSA, understanding the links between climate change, unemployment and migration is important, since climate change can constrain agricultural development and food security, thereby perpetuating socio-economic inequalities and social conflicts (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016; Ghimire et al, 2015; van Wesenbeeck et al, 2016; Wong, 2016). Migration in SSA is partly a consequence of under-investments in the agriculture sector which perpetuate poverty.…”

“…Consequently, in both developed and developing countries, there have been failures or fear on the part of policymakers to develop and implement substantive policy innovations, as policymakers exhibit signs of negativity bias and risk aversion. It is for these reasons that climate change policies often do not encompass major or far-reaching policy innovations and experiments and many climate change programmes in different countries have often been procedural and negative in character (Howlett, 2014; Nagoda, 2015 Perez et al, 2015; Wong, 2016;). For example, some climate finance programmes have been shown to exacerbate climate change vulnerability by ignoring existing gender gaps and structural inequalities, consequently reinforcing, rather than challenging, women’s subordination in access to land and public participation (Perez et al, 2015; Wong, 2016).…”

Leveraging climate finance for gender equality and poverty reduction: A comparative study

“…All of these are challenges for women to engage in learning, politics and decision-making processes (Schalatek 2009). Addressing these issues is crucial, given how climate change can amplify existing inequalities (Wong 2016). Climate finance has the potential to widen gender gaps within communities.…”

“…Climate finance has the potential to widen gender gaps within communities. Importantly, if climate finance does not attend to existing gender gaps or challenge structural inequalities, women's lack of access to land and public participation could be reinforced (Wong 2016 (Eschke 2017). They found that many climate-change related programs and activities do not take gender and poverty into consideration, which were retrofitted to outcomes, instead of the reverse.…”