Gender sensitivity of Sub-Saharan Africa National Adaptation Programmes of Action: findings from a desk review of 31 countries

AbstractThere is growing realization that ignoring the mediating influence of gender relations may impact on the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation policies, which has gradually brought gender issues onto the agenda of national and international fora. Against this background, this article confronts discourse with reality, by investigating to what extent and in what way 31 Sub-Saharan African National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) integrate a gender dimension into the different phases of the NAPA cycle, and the different sectors that are especially related to climate change. Additionally, this paper analyses the extent to which women and gender experts participate in diagnosis and decision-making, as well as the gender sensitivity of the format used for participation. The findings of the gender scan demonstrate, among other things, that there is a decline in gender sensitivity throughout the intervention cycle. Furthermore, processes have been more gender-sensitive than the actual content of NAPAs, which suggests that gender actors around the table in NAPA decision-making have not always been able to influence the content of the NAPAs. When it comes to integrating gender issues in climate change budgets, our study suggests that the insights, approaches and tools of gender budgeting could be particularly useful.Keywords: genderadaptationSub-Saharan AfricaNAPAsWomen in Development (WID)Gender and Development (GAD) Notes1 The UNFCC was agreed upon during the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), yet it neglected the UNCED Rio principle that 'women have a vital role in environmental management and development', and that 'their full participation is therefore essential to achieve sustainable development' (UNCED, Citation1992, p. 4).2 The guidelines prescribe the following structure: (1) Introduction and setting; (2) Framework for adaptation programme; (3) Identification of key adaptation needs; (4) Criteria for selecting priority activities; (5) List of priority activities and (6) NAPA preparation process (Least Developed Countries Expert Group, Citation2002)3 The Sub-Saharan African countries that have elaborated a NAPA in the period 2004–2011 are (in alphabetical order): Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierre Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.4 The IUCN is the partner of the three Rio conventions and GEF in mainstreaming gender into the implementation of the three conventions (IUCN Gender Office, nd).5 NAPs were agreed upon in the context of the 2010 Cancun Adaptation Framework and, in contrast to NAPAs, they are focused on the middle and long term (Kreft, Kaloga, & Harmeling, Citation2011). In 2011, the Gender Office of the IUCN elaborated draft gender guidelines for these NAPs (IUCN, Citation2011).6 We would like to thank one of the referees for her/his suggestion to check for the possible influence of having a female head of ministry. Similarly, we would also like to acknowledge the suggestion of one of the referees to investigate whether the maturity of projects matters and for hinting at the level of specification of budgets and indicators as possible proxies for maturity.7 A cluster of interventions are all the projects in one sector. The scope of such clusters may differ across countries and sectors: some clusters include one project while other are composed of five projects.8 The SIGI is a composite index that has been constructed under the auspices of the OECD and that combines five dimensions including 'family code', 'civil liberties', 'physical integrity', 'son preference' and 'ownership rights'. Its score is between 0 and 1, and the lower the index the lower the level of gender discrimination. Malawís scored 0,14323 on the 2009 SIGI and is included in the group of countries with a medium level of gender discrimination (on a scale from high–medium/high medium–medium/low–to low gender discrimination) (OECD, Citationnd).9 The Global Gender and Climate Alliance was launched at the 2007 UNFCC in Bali by the Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), UNEP and the UNDP. Since then, more than 25 UN agencies and civil society organizations have joined (IUCN and UNDP, Citation2009). The Africa Adaptation Programme is a joint initiative of Japan and the UNDP to help create more informed adaptation decision-making and more effective implementation of those decisions. Twenty African countries participated in the programme, which was launched in 2008 (UNDP, Citation2011b).