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GENDER ASSESSMENT OF ESWATINI’S CLIMATE POLICY

AND PLANNING INSTRUMENTS

The Government of Eswatini, through the NDC Partnership, requested support to enhance attention to gender consider- ations in the revised NDC and within the landscape of associated policies. World Resources Institute, in partnership with

EnGen Collaborative, conducted a gender assessment of the policy and planning mechanisms, between July and November

of 2020, to identify the strengths and challenges and to put forward a set of recommendations. This document provides

those key points for each review criteria in the assessment. See the full report for and explanation of those criteria and the

detailed analysis.

FINDINGS BY GENDER CRITERIA

Part 1 | Overarching commitment to integrating gender

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Gender equality commitments and recognition as cross-cutting issue • Elaboration of gender mainstreaming commitment

• Institutionalization and coherence across policies and reporting

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Ensure that the gender-related commitments that have been made at the international and national level are consistently included in all climate-related

policies and their associated implementation plans.

• Develop and disseminate a set of guidelines with clear expectations for how each climate-related ministry is to integrate, track and report on gender. These

guidelines should align with the UNFCCC gender action plan and the broader set of national gender policies and strategies.

• Engage the national gender machinery to support the climate-related sectoral ministries to strengthen integration of gender into their policies and

implementation plans, and to build their capacity to effectively manage, monitor and report on those plans.

• Increase coordination of gender integration among climate-related ministries and their supporting partners via the NDC Revision Coordination Team

Part 2 | Integrating gender in institutional arrangements for climate change

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Positioning of the gender machinery and gender focal points • Engagement and capacity of gender machinery

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Develop, circulate and apply a set of standard operating procedures for when and how to engage the gender machinery in climate-related processes, such as

the Technical Advisory Group and NDC Coordination team.

• Strengthen the capacity of the gender machinery to effectively apply national commitments to gender equality across the landscape of climate policies and

plans. (funding, hire and train staff with climate change knowledge, institute coordination and accountability mechanisms on gender and climate change;

re-galvanize the gender focal point system.

Part 3 | Stakeholder engagement with consideration of gender

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Civil society engagement

• Women as beneficiaries

• A narrow and generalized focus on women

• Women as stakeholders

• Seeing women as agents of change

• Achieving gender balance

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Develop and engage a roster of national gender experts.

• Conduct public outreach about climate change policy processes and means for engagement, targeting historically marginalized groups, including women.

Offer opportunities to learn about the issues and to engage in decision-making processes

• Revise the language in the NDC and climate-related policies and plans to recognize women as equal stakeholders and agents of change in climate

change processes.

• Work towards achieving gender balance in climate change decision-making processes and implementation of initiatives.

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Part 4 | Gender data and analysis to inform gender-responsive climate initiatives

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Addressing cultural and historical gender inequality issues • Data, information, and sectoral linkages

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Use the forthcoming gender analysis to inform policy revisions across the NDC-priority sectors to make them more responsive to the identified issues.

• Develop or enhance national systems for routinely collecting, storing, analyzing and sharing sex-disaggregated data.

• Require NDC supporting partners to conduct gender analysis to inform the design of their plans and initiatives.

• Assess the evidence of good practices for gender integration and achieving outcomes from sectors where gender has been comprehensively integrated (e.g.,

health, education, land rights, water, agriculture) to inform NDC sectors practices.

Part 5 | Capacity development, knowledge sharing & awareness on gender and climate

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Recognizing need for capacity building;

• Cross-sectoral approach and learning;

• Intersectionality

• Collective awareness and understanding on gender and climate linkages;

• Tools and resources

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Commission and require a basic level of gender training for all staff in climate-related sectors.

• Require and allocate adequate budget for the engagement of women in climate-related actions, providing the necessary training on the technical issues for

them to be able to meaningfully participate and contribute.

• Develop a communications and outreach plan to disseminate news, policy updates, guidance notes, good practices, case studies, etc. on gender and climate

change to relevant ministries and their partners.

• Sharing learning on gender and climate change across all of the relevant sectors through various means such as the development and dissemination of case

studies, highlighting this work during workshops, conferences and newsletters, or other means.

Part 6 | Gender-responsive financing

STRENGTHS CHALLENGES

• Differential needs of people

• Climate financing and Readiness Proposals from financing

mechanisms

• Gender-responsive budgeting

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Adopt gender-responsive budgeting practices across climate sectors and national development planning more broadly.

• Put checks in place to ensure that gender actions within climate-related initiatives are adequately funded.

Part 7 | Monitoring and Evaluation systems considerate of gender

CHALLENGES

• Monitoring gender considerations or progress on social determinants for equality will be monitored, evaluated and reported on

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Identify key indicators of progress on gender and social within the NDC priority climate sectors and require teams working in those sectors to collect data to

inform those indicators.

• Ensure that all people-level indicators used in NDC priority sectors are disaggregated by sex and other socio-economic factors.

• Develop a central repository for NDC M&E data and allow for open access of this data to facilitate use across sectors.

• Report on gender integration and progress to mainstream gender as well as results toward the UNFCCC GAP.

NEXT STEPS

• Formalize Coordination among Department of Gender and Family Issues, and Department of Climate Change

• Allocate resources (financial and human with gender specialist)

• Collaborate and build capacity

• NDC implementation