20 November 2008: The UN Development Programme and the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), in partnership with the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN and the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, held the Gender and Climate Change Finance Workshop, at UN Headquarters in New York, US, from 20-21 November 2008.

The event brought together climate experts, governments, UN agencies
and civil society organizations to develop a first set of gender-based
guidelines to ensure that climate change funds target women and men
equitably. Given the fact that women are the most vulnerable to climate
change risks due to their limited access to capital, markets, and
technology and decision-making, and that they have an important role to
play in mitigation and adaptation to climate change, the workshop
emphasized that women are emerging stakeholders in the upcoming climate
negotiations.
The workshop was organized on the recognition that the
UNFCCC is the only Rio Convention that does not adequately address
gender inequalities, and that this omission has been carried forward in
the existing climate change finance mechanisms such as the Clean
Development Mechanism and the Adaptation Fund.
Workshop participants
underlined that the empowerment of women in climate activities is key
in making climate change funds more effective at the local level. The
gender-based guidelines for climate financing developed at the workshop
will be forwarded to the climate change negotiations in Poznań, Poland,
in December 2008. [UNDP Press Release]