On March 21, 2024, SAEDI Consulting (Barbados) Inc., hosted our first webinar of the year highlighting the topic of Gender Perspectives in Biodiversity and Finance. This topic builds on the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day of ‘Inspiring Inclusion.’
Women are critical holders of knowledge related to biodiversity management, rely on ecosystem services for their well-being, and hold unique, interdependent, relationships with natural capital. Despite these factors, discussions on gender and women’s roles in biodiversity management are limited, especially when it comes to directing financial resources toward women-led projects, programs, and financial mechanisms that support women’s important relationship with biodiverse resources. To offer their expertise on this subject, we were joined by four exceptional speakers:
From left to right: Karen McDonald Gayle, Chief Executive Officer of the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund; Dr. Nikita Ali, Project Coordinator & Biodiversity Officer at The Cropper Foundation; Stacey Alvarez de la Campa, Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director of Climate Rights & Justice International; and Keisha Garcia, ESG Natural Capital Lead with ANSA Merchant Bank.
Our speakers shared important lessons from their work and personal experience, providing a unique opportunity for us to listen, learn and explore key insights on this topic. The key lessons shared cover several areas.
Karen McDonald Gayle, CEO of the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF), provided us with key insights and examples of the how the CBF is prioritizing gender at the heart of their work. The Fund currently manages USD$200m (invested) plus an additional USD$22m being used to support projects focused on Ecosystem-based Climate Adaptation, Circular Economy and Conservation Trust Fund development (for sustainable financing in conservation) in the Caribbean region. With support from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), CBF has designed and is implementing the Caribbean Organizations for a Resilient Environment (CORE) Project, valued at CAD $13.4 million (CAD $8 million funding from GAC and CAD $5.4 million in co-financing from the CBF). The project’s 3 core components include: supporting capacity building that promotes gender-responsive nature-based climate solutions; providing grants to projects that integrate gender components in design and implementation; and targeting regional networking and collaboration. Their work combines gender mainstreaming, collaboration and the (upcoming) implementation of a gender action plan and gender policy as a foundation for their work.
These lessons are important starting points for considering how we can better understand the intersection of finance and preventing biodiversity loss as well as the critical roles women have in this intersection. They can help us work toward an improved eco-social world that includes gender-inclusive climate action. In the words of Wangari Maathai, “You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.”
Dr Nikita Ali, Project Coordinator & Biodiversity Officer with The Cropper Foundation shared with us how women’s traditional knowledge, technologies and practices have been passed through generations and reflect an intimate relationship with the land, sea, flora, and fauna. At the local level, the caretaking of backyard gardens provides ecological corridors that ensure genetic exchange and habitats for species that have otherwise been fragmented by urbanization. Women’s roles also support food security through their positions in agricultural value chains. They hold an immense wealth of locally adapted natural resource management knowledge along various value chains. The unique contributions of women, however, are difficult to quantify and measure due to a lack of adequate disaggregated data that currently exists to provide evidence of the impact of women’s unique contributions.
Image courtesy of Dr. Nikita Ali.
Stacey Alvarez de la Campa, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Climate Rights and Justice International built upon the lessons shared by Nikita. Stacey provided us with many different examples of where women lack decision-making power, even though they hold important roles in value chains and are consistently taking on greater responsibilities toward the management of small-scale agriculture production. Beyond the local level, women are under-represented in political leadership, and at international forums. For example, just 12% of negotiators linked to climate change decision-making are women and women comprise only 27% of the national delegations to the UNFCCC. Women contribute substantially to their economies in the Caribbean despite being usually employed in the lowest paid and least-protected positions and categories of work. In order to support the move toward an inclusive economy, women need better access to financial mechanisms to be able to save (more) money, safely send and receive payments, and participate in microfinance without being taken advantage of. Such a shift would also require making eligibility criteria more inclusive so that women can access finance that benefits them and supports their meaningful economic and ecological contributions. Stacey further recognized the importance of language, reframing Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as Big Ocean Striving States (BOSS) with the capacity and power to rewrite narratives and pioneer changes that include and support women across various sectors.
Image courtesy of Stacey Alvarez de la Campa.
Keisha Garcia, ESG Natural Capital Lead with ANSA Merchant Bank explained the current circumstances we have reached on Earth by conducting ‘business as usual’ i.e. exceeding 6 of 9 planetary boundaries, including biosphere integrity. Our current global ecological footprint is nearing the ecological use equivalent of 1.75 planet Earths. These losses to nature also come with financial impacts. Surpassing our ecological tipping points puts 50% of global GDP and 1.2 billion jobs, that are reliant on natural capital, at risk. The World Economic Forum estimates that $44 trillion in economic value generation, more than half the world’s total GDP, is moderate to highly dependent on nature and its services.
“We will not achieve our climate goals if we fail to protect and restore nature... and transformative change for biodiversity will only be possible if issues of gender equity and the role(s) of women are considered.”
Uplifting the roles of women in biodiversity management and ensuring finance is there to support them is a critical element in achieving climate related goals and ensuring the sustainability of natural capital and the provision of ecosystem services.
Image courtesy of Keisha Garcia.
The Caribbean Natural Capital Hub, an initiative of ANSA Merchant Bank, is making the issue of mainstreaming natural capital, and making it inclusive, a priority. The hub works in partnership with the Cropper Foundation and applies a gender analysis to their work. One of their current projects is providing an SME grant program to fund new and disruptive green/blue business models and ideas. This is one way they are working toward supporting the immense funding gap (estimated at US$700 billion per year) needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
The session provided valuable insights and melded a diverse range of perspectives. A recap of the key lessons includes the following:
Women currently and historically enable Biodiversity Management: Women and girls, unknowingly and knowingly play a critical role in biodiversity management practices through cultural practices, their livelihoods, and through their role in advocacy. Despite this, data gaps, the lack of disaggregated data, and gender disparities hinder the ability to track and quantify their contributions.
Concepts can be Reframed for Empowerment: Using the right language can instigate change. Climate Rights and Justice International’s reframing of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) presents the alternative acronym, Big Ocean Striving States (BOSS), as a mechanism of recognizing and asserting the power that underrepresented voices have. Ensuring women's meaningful participation in decision-making and providing access to inclusive financing are essential steps in addressing environmental challenges, achieving sustainable development, and making a meaningful change.
Financial Institutions have a wealth of Opportunities for addressing Gaps: Mainstreaming biodiversity practices among businesses, realigning business models, and spearheading nature positive innovation practices are critical for creating change. Inventive and inclusive financing mechanisms can strengthen women's involvement and further advance efforts to preserve biodiversity, maintain vital nature-based services, and move towards climate-resilient blue and green economies.
Change is Constant, Learning is a Process: Learning is an ongoing process that happens everyday. CBF currently strives to ensure that at least 30% of its beneficiaries are women and girls and continues to support marginalized and diverse voices through projects like CORE. Supporting women, being gender aware and responsive, and monitoring progress is necessary at an internal level among the implementing groups and externally, in the implementation of projects themselves.
We sincerely wish to thank all our panelists for sharing with us their insights on what it means to consider gender perspectives in biodiversity and finance. To read and hear more from their presentations, check out our website.
We also wish to thank our 60 participants for joining us and providing their thoughtful questions and comments to the discussion.
Feedback from participants showed that 94% felt their understanding on the topic of gender perspectives in biodiversity and finance improved after attending the webinar. The same percentage also felt that they could apply the information shared to their own communities and personal situations. 100% said that they were likely or very likely to recommend SAEDI Consulting webinars to their friends and colleagues.
Through our virtual conversation series, SAEDI Consulting and our guest experts explore factors that drive, spur, include and deter participation of vulnerable and marginalized groups from meaningful participation in sustainable development and environmental sustainability. We also seek to identify what more is needed to reach the goal of inclusive and just societies that work for everyone and for nature. We look forward to having you join us at our next one! Check out our website for further updates.