Strengthening Gender Responsiveness of the Green Climate Fund Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Programme in Namibia

Margaret Ndapewa Angula,Karl Mutani Aribeb,Selma Lendelvo,Aina-Maria Iteta,Jessica P R Thorn,Immaculate Mogotsi

doi:10.3390/su131810162

Margaret Ndapewa Angula, Karl Mutani Aribeb + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810162

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Abstract

Scholars of gender and climate change argue that gender-blind climate change actions could exacerbate existing inequalities and undermine sustained climate change adaptation actions. For this reason, since 2017, the Green Climate Fund placed gender among its key programming prerequisites, making it the first multilateral climate fund to do so worldwide. However, to date, no lessons to inform planned gender-responsive ecosystem-based interventions in Namibia have been drawn from community-based natural resource management. Thus, this paper aims to share key lessons regarding the way in which gender assessment is useful in enhancing equity in an ecosystem-based adaptation programme for the Green Climate Fund. To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews and group discussions in the 14 rural regions of Namibia with 151 participants from 107 community-based natural resource management organisations (73.5:26.5; male:female ratio). The results identified gender imbalances in leadership and decision-making due to intersecting historic inequalities, ethnicity and geography, as well as other socio-cultural factors in local community-based natural resource management institutions. We also identified income disparities and unequal opportunities to diversify livelihoods, gendered differentiated impacts of climate change and meaningful participation in public forums. Overall, the assessment indicates that considering gender analysis at the initiation of a community-based climate change adaptation project is crucial for achieving resilience to climate change, closing the gender gap, building capacity to increase equity and empowering women in resource-dependent environments in Namibia and Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

Highlights

The recent special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1.5 ◦ C confirms that climate change is a major threat to humanity and urgent action is needed [1]
We focused on community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and community-based tourism through the conservation of biodiversity, since these sectors were identified at the national level as having the greatest potential to diversify livelihoods, generate wider economic and developmental gains and address the adaptation deficit at the local level in rural Namibia [34,35]
Gendered Division of Labour in CBNRM Institutions In Namibia, gendered norms can exclude women from diversifying income sources in ecosystem-based adaptation projects as a means to secure livelihood, and influence the way in which women and men may employ some adaptation strategies over others. This was evidenced in the finding that employment from tourism and natural resource livelihoods were demarcated by a gender division of labour [41,42]

Summary

Introduction

The recent special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1.5 ◦ C confirms that climate change is a major threat to humanity and urgent action is needed [1]. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), increasing temperatures, evapo-transpiration, variable climate and extreme rainfall could impact rural and urban populations severely. This is the case for agricultural and pastoral communities that are highly reliant on natural resources for water-energy-food security in dryland Namibia [2]. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10162 ecosystem-based adaptations are advocated by the Convention of Biological Diversity [3]. In Namibia, early studies confirm that the impacts of climate change on agricultural and ecosystem-based livelihoods are gender-differentiated [16]

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