Taking National Climate Change Gender Action Plans to heart – three steps to activate a plan

Abstract

abstract Sometimes the policy and material discourses around climate change may feel far removed from the daily realities of people, whose experiences are intensely local and whose time horizons are immediate. Perhaps there are more creative ways to bring policy closer to the homestead, so that people better understand the implications of public policy and are better equipped to hold governments responsible to stated commitments. Climate Change Gender Action Plans may present both an opportunity and effective entry point for collective understandings and movement building – because ‘gender’ has become the catch-all word that embraces a non-patriarchal, pro-feminist approach to fundamental change, and a creative avenue to innovative solutions to the multiple risks associated with the changing climate. In Belize, the National Climate Change Office (NCCO) is the Government’s secretariat for climate change, acting as the operational arm of the Belize National Climate Change Committee, and tasked with developing the National Climate Change Gender Action Plan in 2021. This focus shares some perspectives on the opportunity such official documents offer grassroots climate change activists and movements for change; and the importance of civil society ‘activating and enlivening’ these plans towards their collective visions. Taking Belize’s recently outlined Gender Action Plan as the backdrop, I highlight important aspects of the plan that are relevant to African nation states and consider how local climate change activists may breathe life into a public document that so far exists only on paper. I also took the liberty to invite Destiny Wagner, Miss. Earth (Belize 2021-22), to offer additional perspectives as an appointed ambassador for the environment, one of whose roles is to raise awareness of climate change and ecological issues in Belize.