Concept note
Unpacking gender dimensions within climate-related concerns, policies and programmes is important to enhance social, economic, and environmental outcomes. In particular, exploring the gender and climate change nexus is key to reducing the differentiated impacts of disasters and climate change on women and men, promoting the empowerment and opportunities of women and men in all their diversities, enhancing their access to environmental decision-making, and ensuring a just transition.
Data plays a critical role in uncovering gender-climate change nexus issues, informing actions, and supporting the monitoring of policy implementation and outcomes. The statistical community at various levels has been advancing statistical guidance and tools in the areas of gender, climate change, and the intertwining between the two. They include, for instance, the Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting and Climate change, the Disaster-related Statistics Framework, the Asia-Pacific Gender-Environment Indicators and the Model Questionnaire on Gender and Environment. Understanding particular circumstances, needs, and priorities of countries is essential for policy-relevant applications of these tools and guidance in addressing national gender-climate change concerns.
To this end, ESCAP and UN Women are partnering to support the Government of Fiji in the production and use of selected priority statistics and indicators that may help understand the gender-climate change nexus and inform related policies based on national needs. In particular, this support will include: (1) A facilitated national multistakeholder consultation to identify key information needs and priority areas for measurement; (2) Technical support for the production of selected indicators of national policy interest using available data; and (3) Assistance with the preparation of a short data brief for policy advocacy/use and way forward.
Within the context of pursuing step (1) above, UN Women and ESCAP are looking to organize a national consultation with key stakeholders in Fiji. In particular, the national consultation, scheduled to take place on September 18th and 19th, will bring together representatives from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics and representatives from key Ministries/national agencies, Civil Society Organizations and Development Partners engaging in gender, climate change, and/or gender-climate change nexus related work.
In particular, participants at the workshop will be currently engaged in data production or use to address gender-climate change nexus issues within their organisations, and at the workshop will be asked to outline related policy issues relevant in the context of Fiji as well as relevant data their ministry/organisation collects and how is it collected; how that data is (or is not) currently used for decision-making; and how gender-climate change data could best support policy formulation and decision-making in Fiji.