Thread by @_chandnisingh

New paper out @Climate_Policy on how #gender is considered in climate #adaptation planning. bit.ly/India-gender

We (@nityarao63 @divya_s_s) started with a question "does 'mainstreaming' gender everywhere mean gender is nowhere?" @iihsin @developmentuea

https://twitter.com/Climate_Policy/status/1416008309400821761

We examined 28 sub-national climate action plans in India (the State Action Plans on Climate Change or #SAPCCs) and asked:

1⃣ How is gendered vulnerability framed and reported?
2⃣ What policy approaches are used to build local adaptive capacities?

We draw on gender & intersectionality in adaptation scholarship @N_Kabeer @MargaretAlston @MaryCTHall @Farhana_H2O @edwardrcarr @nightingalea @AroraJonsson and others to show how different framings to recognize gendered vulnerability leads to different policy approaches.

We find, most subnational climate policies in #India explicitly mention gender as a mediator of #vulnerability & adaptive capacity.

Some states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand👏👏) overcome tropes of women as vulnerable to view them as agents of change. @moefcc

However, most SAPCCs equate gender with women and do not acknowledge relational and dynamic aspects of gendered vulnerabilities.

Some states are reporting intersectional drivers of vulnerability especially around differential resource access; livelihoods; labour divisions.

Policy approaches in the SAPCCs span from gender-blind to gender-specific to gender-transformative.

Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand really push the envelope here, with proactive interventions to address gender inequalities & enable inclusive participation

Overall
✅There ARE improvements in how Indian climate policy recognises gender & equity concerns but
❎12 states do not recognize gender in their policies; many still frame women as victims of climate change without recognising their contributions to adaptation

@AnjalPrakash

More worryingly, all the SAPCCs view gender through binaries of male/female-headed households which masks intrahousehold heterogeneity, relational gender dynamics, and changing masculinities.

SO WHAT, YOU ASK? In 2019, Indian states were asked to revise their five-year SAPCCs (and these will feed into India's NDC). Our findings suggest ways to revise these SAPCCs in a manner that can further a gender-transformative agenda. @carboncopyinfo @CarbonBrief @third_pole

𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭: Review current portrayals of gendered vulnerability as pertaining to women alone and revise uneven inclusion of intersectional aspects.

𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮: Commission new or draw on existing state & district vulnerability assessments that have a gender component. Move beyond collecting sex-disaggregated data alone; assess intersectional differences in access & agency.

𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟯: Draw on lessons from participatory planning in forestry, watershed management in India
to find more meaningful ways to bring in the voices of grassroots organizations and men and women. One-off 'stakeholder consultations' don't cut it.

Read the paper bit.ly/India-gender and if you can't access it just email/DM.

Feedback is very welcome.

And finally, publishing in @Climate_Policy has been superb. Great editorial team, very detailed reviewer feedback, empathy when deadlines needed to be pushed for personal reasons (multiple times), and careful language editing towards the end. Thank you!