INTERVIEW: ‘Why Gender Equality Matters in Climate Policy Conversation’
Ranjitha Puskur is the Evidence Module Lead at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) Gender Impact Platform. In this interview at the just concluded COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, she speaks about the significance of integrating gender into climate policy and action.

Newspage: At COP28 in Dubai, gender was incorporated in climate policy and action. Why does gender still matter at COP29?
Puskur: The COP29 Parties, United Nations entities, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) constituted bodies, and other relevant organizations are called upon to review progress, gaps, and priorities in implementing the enhanced Lima Work Program on Gender (LWPG) and its Gender Action Plan (GAP).
The GAP is meant to advance gender balance and integrate gender considerations into the work of Parties in the area of implementing the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. Kenya, among other parties, made its submission recognizing contributions from the CGIAR Gender Impact Platform and other partners in meeting the goals of the GAP.
A synthesis report based on these submissions formed the basis for workshops with negotiators and relevant entities at the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB60) from June 3-6, 2024. The report highlighted progress, challenges, gaps and priorities in implementing the GAP. The parties developed a draft decision for consideration and adoption at COP29.
Newspage: What are the challenges with implementing effective Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices among vulnerable groups such as women?
Puskur: A major gap is the lack of gender-disaggregated data beyond participation metrics. Without this data, it is harder to track changes in progress. So, the first step is to make sure gender-disaggregated data is available. This is coupled with a lack of methodologies and frameworks to capture the nuances across diverse contexts.
Disaggregated data that reveals gender-based differences and inequalities are crucial for understanding the specific needs and impacts of CSA practices on vulnerable groups to allow for targeted investments and interventions.
The challenges include inadequate high-level commitment to gender equality and social inclusion in CSA, the absence of clear and standardized indicators and metrics to measure gender-differentiated impacts of climate change and CSA as well as insufficient resources, capacity, and time to collect and analyze gender-disaggregated data effectively and continuously.
The opportunities available are the improved use of diagnostic and facilitation tools for project development, standardized methodologies for impact assessment, and digital means for data collection as well as an increased willingness among organizations to integrate gender dimensions during design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation phases of project cycles.
Newspage: You do hotspot mapping in the regions where the combined effects of climate change, agricultural vulnerability, and gender inequality are the most severe. How crucial is this exercise for achieving the goals of the UNFCCC in terms of climate action and gender equality?
Puskur: It is a very important methodology. Hotspot mapping can prevent inequities from growing and allows governments to target their interventions by identifying areas where climate change impacts are most intense, and where women are most exposed to its impacts due to their role in agriculture, along with other vulnerabilities emanating from existing gender inequalities.
These climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspots require increased attention, interventions and investments to pave the way for gender-responsive CSA practices that build resilience and improve women’s livelihoods in the long run. Targeted efforts include designing climate information services and extension services that cater to women’s needs while strengthening their leadership in community-based climate adaptation projects.
The CSA can also contribute to the UNFCCC’s goal by addressing the unique challenges faced by women in agrifood systems due to climate change. Better data systems, enhanced investments and targeted interventions are necessary. Potential pathways towards making climate solutions more inclusive and effective must also build resilient agricultural systems.
They include: devising the means to continuously capture and analyze gender-disaggregated data to feed into decision-making processes; leveraging the roles of the private sector and climate finance, and using hotspot mapping to ensure we can identify where climate change impacts hit vulnerable women the hardest. This information can be used as a basis to allocate scarce resources to most at-risk populations.
Newspage: What is your major call to action?
Puskur: Climate action should build women’s resilience. The message is that women can be drivers of climate change responses when solutions like climate-smart agriculture are co-designed, for better productivity, adaptation and mitigation outcomes. Inclusive climate action needs more gender-disaggregated data because gender data gaps severely limit the design and implementation of climate-smart agriculture programs and policies.
Inclusive and targeted climate investments can address the disproportionate vulnerabilities of women, channeling climate finance and private investments to climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspots to build resilience. There is a need for parties to adopt a gender-responsive approach to co-design and ensure that CSA as a climate solution benefits both women and men equitably.
We have to invest in better data systems, standardized indicators and metrics to measure gender-differentiated impacts of climate change and CSA as a priority to continually collect and analyze gender-disaggregated data and inform decision-making processes for targeted climate action that addresses the unique challenges faced by women in agrifood systems due to climate change.
There is a need to use public sector funding to leverage private sector and blended finance to actively address women’s unequal access to credit and financial services; disseminating agro-climatic information and extension services tailored to women farmers enabling better adoption of CSA practices.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The interview was produced with support from the Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) Kenya, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) CGIAR and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).