Workshop on Gender and Climate Change

CRPM hosted GBWN partners in North Macedonia from 20 to 25 June 2023. The first two days were dedicated to gender and climate change, mitigation and adaptation measures,

DAY 1

On the first day of our workshop on Gender and Climate Change, we had a chance to visit Mountain Vodno where we kicked off the four-day workshops. The visit was followed by sessions held by Slavjanka Pejchinovska-Andonova, who introduced us to the concept of climate change, mitigation and adaptation measures, and the gender equality component of climate change action.

What are the primary sources of GHGs emissions, what climate change impacts are, and who are the most vulnerable groups to climate change consequences?

We started the discussions with the Climate Change Facts – guided by expert Slavjanka Pejchinovska-Andonova. The session initiated an interactive discussion among all participants about their views on climate change and what kind of actions we can take on the individual and collective levels. Slavjanka gave us a very constructive explanation of the Climate change phenomena and human activities that are contributing to climate change.

What are the needs in each country and what types of actions do we need to start taking to reduce Green House Gasses (GHGs) emissions and their consequences on the environment, biodiversity loss and our lives?

The second session of the day was focused on the relationship between gender and climate change issues – gender roles in society and how these specific roles make woman more vulnerable to climate change. We discussed different examples of vulnerability to climate change in different economic activities in our local contexts.

How Gender-responsive climate actions can support gender equality and minimize climate impacts?

The discussion led us to the conclusion that measures need to be multilayered, meaning if an intervention takes place, we need to consider the different impacts it will have, especially when it comes to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.

DAY 2

The second day of our workshop was quite intense, but we aim high!

Our morning session was dedicated to a quite complex topic of International commitments for Climate Change and Gender Equality – led by our expert Gordana Nestorovska. With Gordana´s guidance, we understood better the connection between international commitments for Climate Change and Gender Equality. The international commitments are the basis for our watchdog network in monitoring and overseeing how they are transcendent in national policies and legislation in our partner countries. The CSOs that we are training in our network on GRB tools will need to use the state’s commitments and reporting mechanisms as advocacy tools as well.

We continued the discussion on the opportunities for Climate Change Financing with Slavjanka Pejchinovska – Andonova, who introduced us to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), its mission, financial instruments supporting climate change actions, eligibility projects, good examples of climate change projects with adaptation and mitigation actions.

How to engage women and men of all ages as stakeholders in the design, development and implementation of climate projects to be financed?

In the afternoon session, we first worked on developing our network methodology that will equip the CSOs with different tools that can be used on different levels (local, national) and different interventions (activities, projects, programs, strategies) for watchdog activities in the climate change financing from a gender perspective. After that, our last session of the day was reflecting the whole day’s discussions and incorporating new information we received from our experts into developing a tool for the regional research on gender in climate change financing assessment.

How can we help our target groups identify their real needs? What are the gender roles in different sectors? How can we ensure Gender sensitive and Green Procurement?

We ended up with many more questions, but that made us even more curious to dive deeper into our work. We wrapped up the workshop by developing a very clear 5-STEPS ACTION plan, guided by Marija Risteska, CEO of CRPM. This action plan is to be followed by the partners in the next two months. Stay tuned!