New Report Alert!

SAEDI Consulting (Barbados) Inc. is pleased to highlight our Report with International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)- Understanding barriers to women’s participation in the UN climate negotiations: Perspectives from the least developed countries.

LDCs are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and often have lower rates of women participating in UNFCCC negotiations- yet, only 1 in 3 UNFCCC delegates, and 10% of heads of delegation are women.

Some LDCs have recently implemented policies that aim to address gender parity in decision-making processes:

• Mozambique developed a criteria to prioritise women in the UNFCCC delegation selection process.
• Rwanda is institutionalising an approach that supports #GenderEquality & women’s empowerment (including directives for NGOs).
• Sierra Leone is creating a more structured and transparent selection processThrough the report, we hope to highlight the role that financial resources, gender biases, and cultural norms, and the current UNFCCC process have on government and female delegates’ involvement in the negotiation process.

More diverse and inclusive representation is essential for effective negotiations. What can we do to enable this? Enhancing policies, institutional support, targeted funding mechanisms (for women and youth), selection criteria, training, sensitization, and support services are among the starting points for increasing women’s participation in international climate change decision-making.

SAEDI Consulting's Managing Director, Leisa Perch, Project Manager, Kwasi Pierre, and Research Associate, Jacqueline Massiah-Simeon were instrumental in the research process and overall development of the report. We are thankful to the team at IIED for the collaboration and support in producing this critical data. Read the report here: https://www.iied.org/22603iied.

Check out the eye-opening Q&A Interview from IIED's Elaine Harty and Tracy Kajumba here: https://www.iied.org/interview-improving-womens-participation-global-climate-talks