66555 No. 134/January 2012 Summary of the Online Discussion on Linking Gender, Poverty, and Environment for Sustainable Development May 2 – June 17, 2011 Gender-Poverty-Environment Links: A focus synergy and improved social/gender, on the links between gender disparity, poverty and environmental outcomes. The poverty and environmental degradation is Social Development Department partnered increasingly recognized as a key strategy for with World Bank’s Independent Evaluation improving the lives of poor women and men. Group (IEG), who hosted the e-discussion on Acknowledging the ways in which their Gender and Evaluation platform. relationships between the environment, society and the economy are gendered opens Participants of the online discussion: space for new approaches to poverty Invitations were sent to internal World Bank reduction, environmental conservation and staff and external academic institutions, civil gender equality. The Social Development society organizations and women’s groups, Department (SDV) of the World Bank working on environment and climate change conducted in-depth studies in Ethiopia and issues. Nearly 1000 people were member of Ghana to advance understanding of the the platform from different parts of the dynamics underlying negative spirals of world, and 50 shared comments, documents, poverty, environmental degradation, and examples and experiences related to the gender inequality, and how to foster a discussions. Majority of the participants were positive synergy in the Sustainable from Africa, and others were from UK, Development sector e.g. energy, agriculture, France, Japan, Indonesia, South Asia and natural resource management, water, urban Latin America. development, and transport. Summary of the Discussions An important component of the study design The online discussion was organized around was an online discussion within and outside four topics to help address questions raised World Bank on findings from the country in SDV’s study: case studies to ―ground truth‖ the potential for wider application in other countries; and Topic 1: Understanding the Dynamics of the to collect and share additional good practice Gender-Poverty Environment links. The first cases that address gender-environment- topic focused on a critical review of a draft poverty-links from as broad a range of conceptual framework that had evolved countries as possible. Another aim was to get throughout the course of the case study input on key elements needed for developing research. The aim of the framework was to tools that could help government and provide a guide to planners and decision- development practitioners to design policies, makers on key gender, poverty, and and projects, that would foster positive environment factors that need to be taken 1 into account in policies and programs. The framework was built on World Bank’s pillars of Sustainable Development: social inclusion, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. The framework assumes that pillars constitute the context in which the links interact and the areas of overlap among economic, environmental and social spheres are where the positive and negative synergies take place. Social institutions and power relationships shape access to resources, opportunities and agency. The field research indicated that formal and informal social institutions and power relationships are at the core of these synergies because they channel access to property rights, to resources, services, technology, economic opportunities, information, and voice in decision making needed by all groups for sustainable livelihoods. This access is differentiated by gender and other social characteristics. The research findings suggested that gender- poverty-environment synergies have the greatest impact in various problem scenarios: identified in a 2011 Gender and Environment climatic shocks, chronic food insecurity; weak analytical background paper prepared for the environmental governance; population new World Bank Environment strategy. pressure or decline, inadequately ―Environmental governance‖ and ―managing compensated displacement. Discussion multiple environmental risks,‖ issues participants also commented on a summary resonated well with the findings of the on one of the eight cases examined in the Ethiopia and Ghana case studies. The country studies -- Land Conservation and discussion on ―Environmental Governance‖ Smallholder Rehabilitation Project critically examined recommendations from (LACOSREP 2) in Ghana. Participants the Gender and Environment Issues Paper suggested that a number of important regarding what is needed to develop gender- elements including environmental responsive environmental governance: 1) governance, basic education and advocacy, links between women’s and environmental time poverty, and the gendered impacts of ministries; 2) capacity building and improved large scale development initiatives (for participation of women in environmental example, the Inter-Oceanic highway in Brazil governance bodies at all levels; 3) expanded which has led to deforestation by cattle women’s involvement in demand-side ranchers, and logging and mining accountability (eg. citizen report cards, companies) need to be included in the gender audits); and 4) quotas for women’s analytical framework. representation coupled with gender training to ensure men’s support. Additional Topic 2: Gender and environment issues: The evidence from the Ghana and Ethiopia case second (also the third) discussion topic studies confirmed the importance of formal focused on gender and environment issues and informal environmental governance 2 institutions to environmental sustainability, vulnerabilities through: 1) expanding gender equality, and sustainable growth but women’s opportunities and capacity to also identified challenges to development of participate in climate change adaptation, and environmental governance that is gender- disaster planning and recovery; 2) expanding responsive, equitable, and transparent. availability of property insurance policies Discussion participants pointed out the need and social protection for the poor; 3) to address constraints on women’s voice in providing gender equitable access to environmental decision-making, poverty, community-based REDD (Reducing illiteracy, gender stereotypes, and women’s Emissions from Deforestation and Forest time constraints. They proposed multiple Degradation in Developing counties) and systems to increase women’s voice such as carbon market incentives and benefits; 4) quota systems, skills training, advocacy and including Gender analysis in vulnerability dialogue with formal and informal assessments. Participants stressed the institutions, support from civil society importance of monitoring and evaluation of organizations, and gender audits all of which women’s participation and the impacts of the require resources. interventions. The Center for International Forestry Research has produced a tool to sex Topic 3: Managing Multiple Environmental disaggregate data on tenure rights to land Risks. The discussion started with the notion and carbon to inform REDD, which to date that gender-poverty-environment linkages has focused on indigenous people and emerge most vividly in vulnerabilities and safeguards but not the gender dimension. resilience to multiple environmental risks, Participants also suggested the need for more such those associated with climate change— specific responses to gender based floods, droughts, sea level rise, coastal and vulnerability to disasters including involving reverie erosion, temperature changes, and women in disaster risk management, more frequent and severe tornado, cyclones targeting female heads of household for etc. These risks threaten food, asset, and preparedness, strengthening response and livelihood security as well as health and relief activities to improve resilience, safety and may lead to migration and preservation of social networks, and access to conflict. Gender differences in vulnerabilities income/employment. and adaption to climate associated risks were evident in both the Ghana and Ethiopia case Topic 4: Approaches to promote positive studies. Participants discussed whether or dynamics: The final discussion pulled not recommendations proposed in the together the threads of the previous Gender and Environment Background Paper discussions to inform the next steps in were adequate to address these developing useful tools to take into account the gender-poverty-environment dynamics in sustainable development policy and/or project. Participants considered the following conditions (eg. climatic variability, deforestation, disasters, financial crises, inequitable access to resources, weak environmental governance, food insecurity, time poverty, appropriation of common property, resettlement, etc.) under which the risk of a negative spiral (environmental degradation, increasing poverty, greater gender inequality) is highest. They also suggested the most effective approaches to 3 turn a negative situation into a positive governance emerged as a key issue in all the spiral. Discussants pointed to population discussions. Access to natural and productive pressure as a critical area along with human resources, particularly land tenure also security measures, basic education, food emerged across the discussions as did the security, environmental governance, and opportunity costs of women’s time poverty attention to the impacts of financial crises due to domestic and care responsibilities. The and resettlement. greater socio-economic marginalization of poor women than men due to environmental Themes Emerging in the Discussions degradation, climate change, and natural disasters emerged in three of the discussions Importance of women’s agency. Most of the as did the role of education. Topics that online discussion focused on specific themes emerged in only one or two discussions or issues. With some variation, similar included the threat of growing population themes emerged in each of the discussions pressure on natural resources, the importance even though the discussion topics differed. of gender-responsive monitoring and Every discussion raised the importance of evaluation, working with traditional leaders women’s participation and voice and various or change agents, the potential for REDD+ to measures to create space for women at start empowering women after ignoring decision-making tables at all levels. In them and their usufruct holdings in terms of addition, gender-responsive environmental the carbon offset market. The strategic use of 4 gender action plans in investment programs was one of the conclusions made by was also discussed. The discussion around participants in national and regional the major themes is summarized below. workshops on gender, poverty and environment in Ghana. Another suggested Debate on nuanced approach: In addition to the need to pay greater attention to access to the gender divide, the participants noted land and natural resources in the analysis but rural vs. urban discrepancies in sharing not just limited to land tenure. Discussing the development benefits, ethnic differences, and lack of attention to gender in REDD, one the analytical divide between gender and participant noted that under statutory and environment efforts i.e. the lack of attention customary law, indigenous peoples or forest to environment in women’s empowerment dependent communities have access to activities and lack of attention to gender in tropical forests, however, it cannot be environment initiatives. There was also a assumed that women have equal access to or divide among discussion participants rights over these resources. As REDD+ is a between those who wanted clear-cut cause performance-based mechanism, tenure and and effect relationships or single factors that ownership of forests and carbon resources were the key to addressing the issue of play a critical role in determining the gender, poverty and environment, in contrast distribution of REDD+ funding. However, to those who were comfortable with the women are often excluded from holding a complexity and ambiguity of title to land. multidimensional and overlapping relationships. For example, one participant Time poverty. One participant stressed that viewed population as a primary driver for ―in Nigeria poverty has a woman’s face.‖ the negative spiral of environmental Gender-based norms ascribe women the degradation, poverty and gender inequality. responsibility of carrying out tasks related to For another ―the problem starts with lack of household management (caring for the education.‖ Yet another wanted to divide young and elderly, cooking, cleaning etc) environment by sector because it was too with no remuneration. Women’s dual load broad-- ―too much of a grab bag.‖ In contrast, prevents them from pursuing education and others suggested the need to examine the economic opportunities or attaining negative spiral from the perspective of the management or decision making positions at beneficiaries themselves --women and men in the same pace as their male colleagues in all developing countries to understand why they sectors and spheres. Others stressed the need feel they need many children; how they to identify measures to reduce the time perceive their environment, and rituals and constraints that limit or prevent women’s roles they play in maintaining a balance with participation in environmental governance. the environment. One participant proposed For example, a Lutheran World Relief project taking a broader ―human security‖ in Niger constructed wells and water storage perspective. The researchers conducting the facilities, freeing women’s time and reducing Ghana case study found that local people had exposure to gender-based violence. A study a multidimensional perspective of the by the Independent Evaluation Group of the relationship between gender, poverty, and World Bank (IEG) on the hazards of natural environment, reflecting the nature of their disasters found that women’s care-giving lives which are not segmented into sectors. responsibilities limited their mobility, making them more vulnerable to disasters Access to natural and production resources, along with cultural restrictions on mobility, land tenure. One participant suggested that lack of information on shelter options and giving poor women and men user rights and disaster warnings. access to natural and productive resources 5 Population pressure. One participant stated needed including capacity building and skills that population pressure is a major challenge training for women and women’s groups, and ―women should be to control the timing quotas for women’s representation in and spacing of their children.‖ She also decision making at all levels, sustained stressed the importance of girls’ education. grassroots advocacy with support from Another participant noted that as long as CSOs, application of laws and international there is high infant and child mortality in conventions on women’s rights and dialogue developing countries, women will continue with formal and informal institutions to to have many children, because children are achieve gender equality. A participant perceived as ―old age security‖ by the described the approach used by ENERGIA at parents. Multiple actions are needed for the national level providing training, saving children and women’s lives, that networking, and resources for studies and includes access to education, quality health, projects on gender and energy. Gender audits sanitation and water services; and access to of the energy sectors in Kenya, Nigeria, and ownership over productive resources by Ghana and India used consultative processes the poor women. Another participant in the formulation of gender action plans by suggested that it is not just about family local energy and gender experts. The plans planning and birth spacing but also about have influenced national energy policies, understanding why men and women feel electrification master plans and the that they need to have many children. representation of women and gender issues in national governance discussions for the Women’s participation and voice in energy sector. The Gender action plans were environmental governance: One participant also incorporated into the project cycle and from Ghana proposed the need for explicit planning documents through monitoring and frameworks addressing gender-responsive evaluation frameworks, operational plans etc. decentralization and participation at the macro, meso and micro levels of decision- Indigenous environmental intermediaries: making. To do this, multiple approaches are Several participants suggested the value of 6 working with and through local indigenous fertility is jeopardizing subsistence leaders and drawing on local environmental livelihoods of the poor reducing their income knowledge to promote positive gender- and pushing them further into poverty. Rural poverty-environment links. One described women are most affected by financial crises, the role of women in the Balinese Subak environmental degradation and disasters. institution for water and agricultural Twenty percent of the households are headed management. Women play an important role by women who lack the contacts and in Subak rituals for balancing the relationship opportunities enjoyed by male heads of between God, humans and the environment household. Rural women depend on forests, to keep all aspects of life harmonious. She mangroves and river bands for their suggested women in charge of these rituals economic activities including crafts sold for could also play significant roles in food income. Deforestation, cutting of mangroves security and biodiversity protection. Another for shrimp tanks and sand mining have suggested identifying local change makers or undermined women’s livelihood. When visionary religious, youth, women leaders kerosene prices increase, wood fuel prices and working with them in thinking about also rise, making it difficult for poor families how to link individuals, schools, families and to cook. community values to a vision for improving lives. She stressed that ―the interaction Transformation of the Analytical Approach: between social-environment-economic The online discussion made a major dimensions of one’s living environment must contribution to the rethinking of the be defined by the beneficiaries themselves.‖ analytical approach for the case studies. Based on the feedback from the participants, Case Examples: One participant described a the analysis was refined using a political striking positive change in the gender ecology framework that encompassed the composition of Community Forest User issues raised. The four key propositions Groups in Nepal over 14 years. The Maoist guiding the case analysis include: Civil war helped elevate the lower castes and women in the community forest user groups. 1. Socio-economic marginalization and Quota requirements from the government natural resource degradation are also helped equalize women’s participation mutually reinforcing processes that are in leadership positions. High male gendered in their impacts on time use, outmigration in some areas also facilitated food security, health, and vulnerability to female leadership. While there has been some climate change impacts. debate whether or not women are mere 2. The appropriation of land for the ―public tokens of men who still run the forest groups good‖ – for conservation areas, behind the scenes, women are now often in concessions to mining and lumber, or majority in group membership and over time construction of large scale infrastructure they have gained leadership skills. Men have such as hydropower dams-- disrupts also adjusted to these changes and gender affected household and community roles are evolving. livelihoods, production, and social organization. Environmental degradation: One participant described the negative impact of 3. Competing environmental interests shape environmental degradation, disasters, and environmental change and the outcomes fuel crises on women in Sri Lanka. Nearly 80 of socio-economic marginalization and percent of the population in Sri Lanka lives in natural resource degradation as well as rural areas, pursuing agricultural livelihoods. appropriation of natural resources for the The decline in forest cover and lack of soil public good intensifies competing 7 interests along lines of gender, class, limited access to natural resources, and ethnic differences. conflict over resources; a common 4. As women and men confront changing response is collective action and fostering circumstances brought about by of resilience strategies to address the marginalization, resource degradation, negative impacts. The online discussion was hosted by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank at the gender and evaluation platform (http://genderinevaluation.ning.com – now deactivated). The Note was prepared by Nilufar Ahmad and Mari Clarke (SDV), together with Alex McKenzie and Bahar Salimova (IEG). The findings, interpretations, and conclusions are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, its affiliated organizations, or members of its Board of Executive Directors or the country they represent. For additional copies please contact: asksocial@worldbank.org 8