W+ : Ensuring Benefits to Mountain Women for Climate Change Adaptation Presentation to ICIMOD 15 January 2014
WOCAN - created in 2004 based on experiences from gender programme at ICIMOD and IFAD/FAO Leasehold Forestry project - Global network with over 900 members in 95 countries, with male as well as female professionals; 260 members in HKH countries - Norad core funding - Focus has been on organizational development for gender equality and women’s inclusion; new focus on women’s empowerment, to increase benefits and impacts for rural women and their groups (Outcome) - Building capacities of institutions to deliver benefits (Process)
What is the W+? An innovation: a framework to quantify and monetize the social capital created by women, to recognize and reward their contributions to sustainable environments and communities Leverages the well-established global carbon market that quantifies environmental capital.
A social standard that quantifies and verifies benefits to women in 6 domains: Time Income/Assets Health Education and Knowledge Food Security Leadership
Performance Measures for the W+ Domain
Income and Assets
Time
Education (and Knowledge)
Leadership
Food Security
Health
Example Outcome Increased community funds under women’s control Improved well being and increased productivity Increased knowledge and skills
Example Indicator
Increased decision making roles for women Increased food security (decrease under and malnutrition) Improved health
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Increase in Assets (land, trees, equipment, livestock)
•
• • •
Increased discretionary time. Increased sharing of women’s work Increased access to literacy/numeracy, business skills, and agriculture and health skills Increased representation in governance bodies.
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Decrease in period of Food insecurity (determined locally)
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Improved air , water quality
Example Activity
Example Measure
Support development of women’s savings and loan initiatives (ex. through seed funds) Provision of time saving technologies and tools
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Bank accounts in women’s name
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Numbers of hours/day spent on other activities
Classes or training and site visits to see successful activities of others
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Records of classes, certificates of completion, attendees list, etc.
Establish quotas for representation of women in governance bodies Provision of technical inputs (including seeds, tools, storage bins, irrigation , etc)
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Number of women members, and women’s groups.
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Amount of food in storage; amount of food purchased from daily wage payments
Installation of improved services (e.g. cook stoves, methane digesters)
• •
Change in indoor air quality Change in GI diseases,
Produces quantified women-benefit units that contribute towards MDG/ development or CSR targets.
A unique certification label that endorses projects that create increased social and economic benefits to women through: - renewable energy technologies - time and labor saving devices - forest and agriculture activities - employment opportunities
Why ?
Strengthening women’s empowerment will provide environmental, social and economic benefits for climate change adaptation and mitigation, resilience and food security. Example: WOCAN’s Scoping Study of Gender, NRM and CC for ICIMOD revealed key issue of women’s workload increases from CC
Will provide new revenue stream to women and their organizations through benefit sharing mechanism.
The Women Effect Governments and development agencies are increasingly including women’s empowerment/ gender equality into project goals, based on women’s rights and evidence of improved project outcomes. Investors perceive that their investments are less at risk when women are receiving benefits and making decisions.
Learning from Carbon W+ creates fully-defined women-benefit units as a new “social-asset” class With strict procedures for quantification and monetization – “Self-organized” governance body: W+, professional verification entities, pro-active project developers
Compliance-induced and voluntary demand - Derived from MDG commitments of donor countries, CSR commitments and “gender” branding
Demand will drive/accelerate investments into projects with strong gender components and strengthen the delivery of benefits from existing projects Quantified women-benefit units that contribute towards MDG/ODA or CSR targets are recognized in ODA and corporate accountability processes.
W+ Operational Design Standard developed by stakeholders to ensure integrity of benefit units Development of methods to define and quantify unit origination from eligible projects – For 6 domains, Do No Harm , and revenue sharing based on standard requirements related to transparency, accuracy, materiality, verifiability
Application of methods to eligible projects - Verification by 3rd party accredited entity Issuance and transfer/sale of units – Using registry supervised/managed by W+
Status of Method Development
• Completing method for TIME domain with South Pole Carbon (January 2014) • Field testing within biogas project in Nepal (February 2014) • Approval of method by experienced carbon and social auditors (W+ Standard Committee)
Pilot Project Beginning in March 2014 A Biogas project in Nepal with AEPC will generate “TIME� units for women based on reduced fuel wood collection times. Will issue units for sale by July 2014
Funding sources Global ODA earmarked for gender activities = $ 20 billion Why not use a W+ framework to measure effectiveness of this spending or even better use a pay for performance procurement model?
Private sources of project financing, mobilized through global carbon markets and CSR channels, are also interested in projects that support women’s empowerment (e.g.Coca Cola’s 5by20 campaign). Can we tap into this investment opportunity to bring new sustained revenues to women, while rewarding them for contributions to climate change and increasing their climate change resilience?
Questions?
Moving Forward: Ideas for Partnership Outcomes for Mt. Women - Engage with WOCAN in method development in Nepal, esp. for revenue sharing (building on experience of Forest Carbon Trust Fund) - Develop Prototype for W+ implementation in Nepal, using biogas, forest, water and possibly soil conservation and waste management technologies for climate change adaptation/mitigation and women’s empowerment. - Document the Action Research process - Support sharing and scaling out with HICAP, HIMALICA and Adapt Change partners (including women’s organizations)
Process for Partners Implementing W+: Capacity Building - - - -
Training on Gender Analysis and Planning to develop Project Plan Leadership training as W+ Project activity Guidance on W+ processes Sale of Units
Thank you. Jeannette Gurung jeannettegurung@wocan.org www.wocan.org www.wplus.org