The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub has successfully helped Jamaica to secure a grant of over US$270,000 to integrate gender concerns into their climate action planning process.
The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub has successfully helped Jamaica to secure a grant of over US$270,000 to integrate gender concerns into their climate action planning process.
The grant will strengthen the country’s coordination on gender responsive climate action and ensure climate policies, programmes and projects address gender inequalities.
A study in 2017 revealed that there are gaps in Jamaica’s Climate Change Policy Framework with respect to gender responsive planning, indicating many opportunities for improvement. These included involving women’s organisations in the design of climate change plans, including gender sensitive indicators and ensuring balance in the number of men and women participating in the climate change agenda.
The Commonwealth’s National Climate Finance Adviser in Jamaica, Katherine Blackman said:
“Women across the world continue to be disproportionately affected by climate change. This grant is of particular importance to ensure that Jamaica’s plans do not overlook the critical role women play in the response to climate change both on the ground and in the decision-making process.”
The grant will bring together climate change practitioners, as well as gender experts from Jamaica’s Bureau of Gender Affairs to address the issues that men and women face due to a changing climate.
Key outputs include a national gender assessment, a Gender and Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, and a gender-responsive communications toolkit on being gender-responsive. The government will also convene a National Gender and Climate Change Symposium. All of Jamaica’s work in developing gender responsive planning models has a very high replication potential across the Caribbean, Pacific and Africa.
This is the fourth grant approved to Jamaica under the Green Climate Fund Readiness Programme supported by the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub.
The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub ensures that Commonwealth Small and Other Vulnerable States have improved access to climate finance by placing experts in government departments to support grant applications, capacity building and implementation. To date, the Hub has helped countries to access more than $30 million of climate finance with over $500 million in the pipeline.
