+1 annotated powerpoint presentation

Editor's Notes

• #2: Purpose : This half day introduction to social/gender dimensions of climate change adaptation was given to a highly mixed audience of Danish civil society representatives working on climate change (adaptation, mitigation) and related issues (environment, NRM), as well as a few working in public health and gender. This is, therefore, a very basic module assuming only a basic understanding of both adaptation and gender. It was meant to give people a ‚social lens ‘ on climate change with a focus on gender dimensions (in relation to other social factors such as wealth, ethnicity, age etc) and, rather than delivering a lot of hard facts and case studies, focused on bringing in the audience ‘ s own ideas, experiences and imagination, so that they can relate to the content and walk away from the session with some ideas on how to incorporate an improved social and gender perspective into their own work. To achieve that, I opted for covering less ground but spending more time on helping participants understand what gender analysis is about (asking the right questions at the right time to the right people...and doing analysis rather than mere tick-boxing and describing) and understanding the significance of such analysis as the basis for gender-equitable adaptation programming: If you get the analysis right, at an early enough stage and continously, rather than halfway through a project in an isolated process, then you ‘ ll most likely know your next steps. For case studies, more facts etc., a set of key weblinks as fact finding starting points, as well as a digital library were shared with the participants. The library stems from the August 2011 gender & CBA workshop and can be updated/ complemented for other workshops.
• #3: Note on timing : Estimate for the overall programme to take half a day (about 4 hours); the first two modules taking up 3 hours including a 10 minute break. Part 3 did not fit into the 3 hour programme in Denmark and also needs some further elaboration. It is meant to move the focus from the community level to what national level adaptation planning can/needs to do in terms of assessing gender risk and opportunities in community based adaptation (the idea was to illustrate how to work on gender-equitable CBA across different levels; scaling up/out etc.)
• #5: This is ALP ‘ s adaptation flower (in a simplified version without the ACCRA Local Adaptive Capacity elements which were added later on – this may have confused the audience – relatively basic knowledge on adaptation – too much). The point here is to illustrate the key dimensions of CBA and introduce the issue of social dimensions – why they are important etc.
• #6: Access and control to information, resources…
• #7: If they do not come up from the audience, bring up: socioeconomic status, ethnicity/ caste, age/ life cycle stage (child, adolescent, young single adult, young married adult, divorcee, widows/ers, elderly, etc etc), livelihood group (smallholders, agricultural labourers, fishers, pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, etc etc.)
• #9: This is the beginning of „zooming in “ on gender, keeping the other social determinants of vulnerability/capacity in mind and remembering that they strongly interact with gender: for example, a woman sitting in the CARE DK office is not very likely to be more vulnerable than her male colleague sitting next to her just because she is a woman. It takes more than that: Gender interacts with other social factors to shape vulnerability and adaptive capacity. In a poor rural community, there will likely be far more women than men amongst the group of people most vulnerable to climate change. This slide is set up so that each time you click, another word appears to frame your narrative:The slide still blank, start by asking the audience about the very first word that comes to their mind when they think ‚gender ‘ . In 99% of cases, this word will be ‚women ‘ . Continue by reminding them that for gender relations to exist, ‚it takes 2 ‘ : there is another sex on this planet [next click]... Men! Then remind them that understanding gender is not just about understanding what women do and think and what men do and think, but most importantly about the roles and power relations that exist between them [click]  the word power appears at the core of the slide. Then continue with the remaining categories: gender roles and expectations in us change over our life time, particularly as we transition from childhoos (‚girls ‘ and ‚boys ‘ ) appear to adulthood and to being elderly women and men...and, finally, there is a difference between whether you are married, divorced, widowed, rich, poor, part of an ethnic minority or majority, healthy or sick. etc. This is an effective tool in setting the scene for talking about gender without limiting ourselves to thinking about women in isolation from everything else.
• #10: For more detailed definition of key gender terms, advise participants to look them up online – there are plenty. The difference between equality and equity is key, however, for understanding what we are after when integrating gender into adaptation: equality is the overall vision for society, where people ‘ s rights, opportunities, resources and rewards are not governed by whether they are born male or female. This does not mean that we want women and men to become the same, but that we want them to be equali in opportunity and choice, and the likelihood that they will live a fulfilled, happy life. Gender equity on the other hand, is more of an instrument toward gender equality  the recognition that power relations and distribution of choices, opportunities, resources and rewards are at present unequal, and that we need to implement ‚affirmative action ‘ -type measures to bring people to the same level: this is where women ‘ s empowerment comes in – women ‘ s empowerment is one key instrument of gender equity.
• #11: Game time! See Annex for instructions. Takes about 10 minutes minimum, but can take longer if you want to discuss in more depth. The aim of this is to help people understand gender equity and lead over to the discussion on gender gaps and climate change that will follow.
• #12: The following slides will each contain one statement on a global gender gap. For each of them, ask the audience what they think the reasons for these gaps may be. Then, for each one, ask how they think climate change may impact this gender gap. In this case, for example, the main reason for the gender gap between labour provided and income earned is largely due to the fact that society has not assigned economic value to the reproductive labour provided by women worldwide: domestic chores, acquisition of resources for basic household energy and water needs, child care, caring for the elderly and sick, etc. The implications of cliamte change, if unaddressed, are an increase in time poverty: increasing hardship, sickness of children and elderly, less arable land and depleting water resources mean increased hours of daily labour for women in many countries, and a heightened likelihood that their daughters drop out of school or don ‘ t even start school so as to secure an extra pair of hands for these chores. It is important, however, not to underestimate the increased stresses men come under in having to provide for their families.
• #13: Often less value seen in educating a girl versus educating a boy; especially in societies where girls are married off asap to secure a high dowry. When a family cannot school all their kids they are often more likely to send the boys. Prolonged droughts, increased floods etc endanger education for children altogether as families run out of money to pay for them and need every extra pair of hands to help with reproductive work, farming etc. Value of education is obvious but one of many examples of its relevance to adaptation is that children in school are more likely to be ‚fit ‘ for disasters, know what to do, how to access/ react to early warning, etc etc.
• #14: Land tenure key gender issue in food & farming; insecure land tenure (de facto ownership/ usage of land but no legal entitlement) by women often a key factor in restricting their mobility and ability to migrate; restricting their food security/ security in access to land when their husbands leave;
• #16: LSE study of disaster mortality in 141 countries over a decade (ealry 90s to early 00s)  huge gender gap in disaster mortality; up to 90% (key example Cyclone Narguis in South Asia); key message of the study is that this mortality gap is not due to biological differences between women and men (‚the weaker sex ‘ ) but directly linked to countries ‘ performance in compliance with social and economic rights for women and men. Interesting observation that male disaster mortality peaks during disaster and female disaster mortality peaks in its immediate and longer-term aftermath. Due to gender roles/ expecations „strong men “ must take more risks etc.; women and girls are highly susceptible to undernutrition / disease in disaster aftermath; ofte subject to gender-based violence (lack of shelter/ security plus increased violent behaviour  adolescent girls easy victims).
• #17: This is to conclude the first part highlighting the high degree of labour division across the food security spectrum, and to reiterate the point that, in order to design an appropriate intervention, we must draw on a whole community ‘ s knowledge – e.g. Those who farm cash crops (e.g in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa often men), those who farm staple crops (in these areas often the women), those who transport and sell it (often men), those who process and prepare food (often women), those who know which wild foods are available, and edible or toxic (often elderly people), etc. etc. An interesting example to highlight in the food utilisation context, if your audience is likely interested, is the impact study of SHOUHARDO which revealed the strong impact of women ‘ s empowerment on the reduction in child stunting (below average height for age of 6-24month old children – symptom of chronic undernutrition / structural causes of undernutrition, with long-term implications for human development) by 15.7% over a period of 3.5 years (significant reduction compared to control groups). Reduction in stunting was significantly higher for households participating in women ‘ s empowerment components of SHOUHARDO, particularly those where women participated in so-called ‚EKATA ‘ groups (Empowerment, Knowledge and Transformation Action groups) the most important benefit of which the women claimed to be the fact they were empowered to ‚speak anywhere, with courage ‘ . Increased influence on HH decision-making by women led to improvement in diets and there for in the HH ‘ s food consumption scores. Suggest a 10 minute break before continuing with the next part.
• #20: See annexed game: Select 7 volunteers to stand up and come to the front – each gets a card with a ‚category ‘ on it – they are 7 individuals from a given village in a rural farming setting. Then read out sample questinos for each of the above set of questions (also provided in the annex). Each of the 7 villagers is requested to think about how likely they are to ‚do-use-control-know-benefit from-be included in ‘ the issue in question and hold up their card higher if they think they are very likely, and lower if they are less likely to ... For each question, spend some time asking the ‚villagers ‘ why they held the card up where they did, and let the audience chip in. Use the discussions to bring in examples from different contexts and provide wider framing on issues currently discussed/ researched in the wider gender & CC community. You will likely find that for everything, there is a counter-example that suggests otherwise  migration being a particularly good example, as „who migrates and why “ is extremely context-specific.  Useful to help sharpen people ‘ s analytical skills, understanding of the challenges involved in doing gender analysis etc.
• #21: This is a recap to help remind of/ complete the dimensions that are relevant
• #26: E.g. women high access to micro-finance – Kisii, Ghana; leasing land for food production; improving soil fertility; diversification
• #27: Watch 3 videos and ask people to take note of issues brought up. Small groups to work on the questions in next slide.
• #30: NAPAs or Eritrea, Guinea Bissau and Malawi: Participants go into 3 (or 6, if too many people) small groups for 30-40 minutes to analyse Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in social and gender terms for one of the three NAPAs and come up with a set of recommendations for a more gender-equitable NAPA, and/or – if they find good practice examples in ‚their ‘ NAPA, recommendations for elements to take on in other NAPAs.  on flip charts. If time permits, recommend circle sharing of group work results rather than a ‚killer plenary ‘ : New groups are formed with 1-2 people from each NAPA group, and they spend max. 10 minutes with each NAPA/flip chart; whoever was in that groups presents, and others get a chance to compare and comment; after ten minutes the group moves on to the next flip chart until all ‚stations ‘ are covered  30 minutes.
• #31: Comment on twin track: Twin track means both gender mainstreaming across objectives/ activities, and specific activities/ targets (often these are related to closing/narrowing certain gender gaps, inlcuding through specific women ‘ s empowerment activities etc.)