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

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.

keywords:

• Climate Change
• Gender Action Plan
• Belize
• Escazú Agreement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 On November 21, 2021, Destiny represented Belize in the Miss. Earth pageant, which was held virtually from the Phillipines due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She won the title. As Miss. Earth, she was an appointed public figure with responsibility to raise awareness of the need for conservation and protection of the commons.

2 See: https://www.travelbelize.org/destiny-wagner-the-journey-as-miss-earth-2021-22/(accessed 14 March 2023).

3 Ethnic and geographic identification coincides with the areas where ethnic groups settled. In the North and West the mestizos, people formed by the union of Spaniards and Maya are in the north and west, the Creoles, formed by the intermarriage of the British and their African slaves are mainly in the centre, and the Garifuna, also called Black Caribs, tend to live along the coast and the Maya farther inland. https://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Belize.html (accessed 14 March 2023).

4 Refugees mainly come from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Historically, they flee their countries to escape wars, crimes and gangs. Belize integrates them and provides public health, education and legal services. See: Integral Human Development, Belize Country Profile, https://migrants-refugees.va/country-profile/belize/ (accessed 14 March 2023).

5 Human Rights Front Line Defenders found that killings of rights defenders across the globe increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries, compared with 358 deaths in 38 countries registered in 2021. Across the different human rights sectors, defenders working on the protection of land, environmental and Indigenous peoples’ rights were the most frequently targeted. Front Line Defenders registered 194 murders of defenders working on these issues, accounting for 48% of the total global killings (The Guardian 2023).

6 Principles 10 and 20 of the Rio Declaration, along with the Escazú Agreement, are based on a fundamental premise: while ensuring environmental protection, the fulfilment of human rights, strengthening of democracy and the consolidation of a sustainable development model, States are duty-bound to ensure access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters. See: https://www.cepal.org/en/infografias/principio-10-la-declaracion-rio-medio-ambiente-desarrollo (accessed 14 March 2023).

7 Full Agreement available at: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/2018/03/20180312%2003-04%20PM/CTC-XXVII-18.pdf Also see World Resources Institute (WRI) statement: https://www.wri.org/news/statement-escazu-agreement-moves-big-step-closer-making-world-safer-environmental-defenders (accessed 18 March 2023).

8 Also see: ‘Overrepresentation of Men in UN Climate Process Persists’, UNFCCC, https://unfccc.int/news/overrepresentation-of-men-in-un-climate-process-persists (accessed 19 March 2023).

9 Author’s copy available at https://networkedintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Belize-NCCGAP-PRINT-VERSION-FINAL.docx, Item 1.2, p.17 (accessed 14 March 2022).

10 Blog post – Candice Batista: “What Is Clean Beauty Anyway?”, https://theecohub.com/what-is-clean-beauty/ (accessed 18 March 2023).

11 Also see: https://theecohub.com/what-is-clean-beauty/ for an explanation of the principles of ‘clean beauty’ (accessed 18 March 2023).

12 See: https://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/232432; Author’s copy available at https://networkedintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Belize-NCCGAP-PRINT-VERSION-FINAL.docx (accessed 14 March 2022).

13 Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform: https://lcipp.unfccc.int/ (accessed 14 March 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nidhi Tandon

NIDHI TANDON is an economist by training and a social animateur by calling, she has followed the path of an independent consultant, working with a range of governments, institutions, civil society organisations and financial intermediaries to respond holistically to their expressed needs. She established Networked Intelligence for Development in 1997 in Toronto, Canada. Their collective work has focused on the nexus of human rights, equitable development and healthy ecologies, in support of social and economic equity. Her practice draws from a rich cross-section of conducting needs surveys and analyses, designing and facilitating capacity development programmes and learning materials, conducting impact assessments and collaborating deeply with local communities and their agencies to articulate and organise around their priorities. Her focus has revolved around issues of food security and sovereignty, climate change, gender justice, digital and gig economies, social justice. Nidhi launched her career as an investigative economics reporter (Zimbabwe International News Agency and BBC Africa Service) before developing policy and technical expertise at the Commonwealth Secretariat and Overseas Development Institute, United Kingdom (UK). She schooled in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, and attended university in the UK. Email: [email protected]