By Florence Kuali-IAUTU – Communication Officer, NAB
Warsaw, Poland
Vanuatu appears to be a leading country from the Pacific region in flagging gender in the eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP18) in Doha and realizing gender is mainstreamed into COP19 Agenda and Decisions at this year’s United Nations climate change global conference currently underway in Warsaw, Poland from 11 to 22 November 2013.
This realization came as Vanuatu this year put forward a gender submission to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework on the Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC). This submission has placed Vanuatu to be one of the only two countries in the pacific to make submissions following requests from the Secretariat to all Parties to the Convention at the beginning of this year. The other pacific country making a submission on gender is the Marshall Islands.
It was last year in Doha, Qatar during COP18 that a call for gender inclusion was agreed upon by members of the different Parties to the Convention. The decision was based around promoting gender balance and improving the participation of women in the Convention’s negotiations and in the representation of Parties in bodies established under the Convention or the Kyoto Protocol.
The Doha decision; “agrees that additional efforts need to be made by all Parties to improve the number of women in bodies established pursuant to the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol and decides to enhance this decision by adopting a goal of gender balance in bodies established pursuant to the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, in order to improve women's participation and inform more effective climate change policy that addresses the needs of women and men equally.”
Vanuatu’s submission on gender has also indicated to other Parties its interests to form a national gender sensitive climate policy underlining the importance of targeted training and capacity building at the intersection of gender and climate, and the great need for increased resources and collaboration to reinforce a robust and integrated gender sensitive approach to climate policy and implementation.
Vanuatu with its continuous support to promote gender through this decision at all levels not only successfully made a submission, but also fulfills the decision’s call for improving gender participation through its delegates’ composition of seven men and six women to Warsaw.
Dorosday Kenneth Lui, Director for Women’s Affairs Department and Juliann Williams, Head of Human Resources, National Bank of Vanuatu followed the issue of gender and CC in the Warsaw conference as part of Vanuatu’s Delegation.
Mrs Kenneth Lui when giving her reflections on last week’s negotiations stressed how successful it is for Vanuatu to be part of gender negotiations at this high level conference.
“I want to inform our people that Vanuatu is taking lead in gender decisions in terms of how we action the ideas in our participation at COP19, and the gender team has followed all negotiations in order that suggestions on Vanuatu’s submission are captured,” She said.
Mrs Kenneth Lui who has been a strong advocate for gender inclusion in all enabling sectors in the country was pleased that Vanuatu has been part of the discussions towards the realization of a gender balance framework in Warsaw.
“It is important that Gender is mentioned in the texts and negotiating positions of the groups Vanuatu belongs to like AOSIS and G77 groups and on other streams we are following to provide further direction to the work of Gender on Climate Change negotiations,” She proudly stated.
In her brief account of how the negotiations went , she explained, “I am pleased to inform you all that we have concluded a Gender Text after much discussions commenced last week with a panel on the findings by an international non-government organization (NGO) for Women and Gender (WEDO) and further informal discussions were held in finding common elements from the presentations and issues from the panel discussions for the text after several informal meetings.” She said.
“A small working group led by the European Union, Iceland, Mexico and the Least Developed Countries met immediately after the informal meetings to address the concerns of USA on the issue of elements proposed for inclusion within the 2 years’ timeframe and for further text on budget for these proposed plans,” she confirmed.
Following much discussions and negotiations last week, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which discusses gender and climate change in the closure of its thirty-ninth session has adopted a final decision granted by its Chair Tomasz Chruszczow, Special Envoy for Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment of Poland.
The adoption of this framework now confirms that all processes of the UNFCCC will have to abide by the decisions stipulated under the gender and climate change agreed framework.
Vanuatu’s Gender Balance and Equality Submission:
Meanwhile, under the final summary of the gender submissions, Vanuatu made the following suggestions: That the UNFCCC consider gender balance in the allocation of funds for participation in the negotiations, calls on the Convention to actively support women’s capacity building through trainings and workshops and suggests that all reports by Parties include sex-disaggregated data and that countries are ranked on their progress towards strengthened gender balance.
For any further questions regarding Vanuatu’s participation at this year’s United Nations Climate Change conference, contact the alternate head of delegation Albert William on email: [email protected]