Advocating at Intersection of Women’s Rights and the Environment

Held at 10:30am in the Church Center of the UN, this panel session was sponsored by the Women’s Environment and and Development Organization (WEDO). WEDO is an international advocacy organization that works to ensure that women’s voices are heard in decisions made about sustainable development. The panel was conducted by 4 WEDO staff, including the organizations co-directors.

The panel began by providing an overview of the intersection of environmental advocacy and women’s advocacy. For some this is a newer idea, and advocates are trying to define what it means to work at the intersection of these two issues. For WEDO, this is not a new issue, and it has been working at the intersection of women’s and environmental issues since the early 1990s. In 1991, the Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet set the stage for international dialogue about the role of women in environmental decisions. This was followed by the Women’s Action Agenda 21, which has served as the basis of WEDO's advocacy work.

WEDO staff then presented the 3 primary activities they are engaged in to support advocacy for women in environmental and development decisions. Recognizing that women’s voices can’t be heard if they are not present at the table, WEDO’s Women’s Delegate Fund serves as a funding source and travel agency for women representing their national governments at international negotiations. 40% of the women the Women’s Delegate Fund has funded have been the only female representatives sent by their nations. WEDO conducts trainings for women engaged in negotiations and advocacy work, and they also prepare reports and research on the status of women and the environment. WEDO's Gender Climate Tracker app (genderclimatetracker.org) provides information on 3 topics: the participation rates of women on national delegations, gender mandates across international policy decisions, and NDC (nationally-determined contributions) analysis. They will soon be launching a website that will provide additional information, and as an open-source site, the public and civil society will be able to enter information about national and local conditions that may not be visible to those working at the international level.

WEDO supports the perspective that “silos are sexist”, saying that working in silos unnecessarily divides us and prevents us from seeing the big picture. Working on gender and climate issues separately makes it more likely that the work done on one issue harms the other. For example, work to improve the economic empowerment of women can harm the environment, if the action taken promotes environmentally extractive practices. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to work at the intersection of these issues.