Gender indicators for global climate funds still an afterthought

Kristin Palitza in AllAfrica.com via IPS: Of the millions of dollars spent on climate change projects in developing countries, little has been allocated in a way that will benefit women. Yet, in Africa, it is women who will be most affected by climate change. According to United Nations data, about 80 percent of the continent's smallholder farmers are women. While they are responsible for the food security of millions of people, agriculture is one of the sectors hardest hit by climate change.

"There is a lot of international talk about climate change funding for local communities and especially for women, but not much is actually happening," says Ange Bukasa, who runs investment facilitation organisation Chezange Connect in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Bukasa was one of the delegates at the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) 2011 Partnership Forum, which was held from Jun. 24-25 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF), established by the World Bank in cooperation with regional multilateral development banks, provide funding for developing countries' climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Since their launch in 2008, CIF has allocated 6,5 billion dollars to climate change projects in 45 developing countries. More than a third of the money went to 15 African states.

But most of the money - more than 70 percent - is financing large-scale clean technology energy and transportation projects. These are traditionally male-dominated sectors of the formal economy. Only 30 percent is being spent on small-scale projects that directly benefit poor, rural communities and thereby potentially improve women's livelihoods….

A peanut vendor in Ouagadougu, shot by Roman Bonnefoy (  Romanceor , Wikimedia Commons,under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.