Honolulu, Hawaii- On the occasion of the IUCN World Conservation Congress that is taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii, SGP participated in a workshop organized by the GEF on Gender Responsive Financing for the Global Environment. The event started with welcoming remarks from the GEF CEO Naoko Ishi in which she highlighted the importance of women to advance sustainable environmental conservation.

The event was moderated by Herbert Acquay, Manager of the Policy, Partnerships, and Operations Unit at the GEF and included a keynote speech from Lorena Aguilar, Senior Gender Advisor from IUCN who presented the percentage of gender participation in the different environmental funds and conventions, the challenges and the improvements that have been made over the last few years. 

The panel started with remarks from Amy Fraenkel, Head of Mainstreaming, Cooperation & Outreach Support at the Convention on Biological Diversity who explained the steps the convention has taken to mainstream gender, in particular its 2015-2020 Gender Plan of Action which sets out concrete actions for Parties to mainstream gender into their activities. Yoko Watanabe, Senior Biodiversity Specialist at the GEF Secretariat outlined the important steps undertaken by the GEF with regards to gender mainstreaming. These include the adoption of a policy to mainstream gender and the development of a Gender Equality Action Plan. Ana Maria Currea, Gender Focal Point for the UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme presented the gender mainstreaming approach of the programme at the project, national and global level, including the incudion of gender analysis in the project proposal and gender country programme strategies and the aggregation of gender responsive indicators at the global level.

Following, these first set of interventions, Anne Kuriakose, Senior Social Development Specialist at the Climate Investment Fund-CIF explained how CIF approach to gender mainstreaming, including the use of gender analysis per sector and the inclusion of women and women’s organizations in consultations. From the UN system, Doley Tserling, Regional Technical Specialist of the United Nations Development Programme presented the agency wide gender policies such as the gender marker, the gender equality plan and the gender equality seal. From the United Nations Ennvironment Programme, Programme Officer Birguy Lamizana, talked about the Policy and Strategy for Gender Mainstreaming, its use of the gender marker to rate projects and online modules for capacity building.

Kame Westerman, Gender Officer from Conservation International presented the incentives, benefits and opportunities of mainstreaming gender in conservation projects and the important role that donors play in setting up minimum standards and raising the bar. Closing the session was Jeannette Gurung, Executive Director of the Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture & Natural Resource Management-WOCAN who called for more integration of gender across the board along with concrete financing that can drive real transformational results.