Effectively Integrating Gender Considerations at the 7th GCF Board Meeting

With decision 3/CP.17, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) made history as the first global climate finance mechanism to include gender equality concerns at its inception by including specific commitments on gender in its Governing Instrument,  including by mandating the Fund as a guiding principle to strive to maximize the impact of its funding for adaptation and mitigation while “taking a gender-sensitive approach” (para.3).  

Bali Decision B.06/07 requests the Secretariat to prepare a draft gender policy and action plan for discussion at its seventh Board meeting.  It also requests the Secretariat to integrate gender considerations in the preparation of draft policy documents and draft documents containing operational modalities, including those for consideration by the Board at its seventh meeting.

However, the provisional agenda for the seventh GCF Board meeting – following a suggestion by the Board Co-Chairs to focus the upcoming Songdo meeting only on the goal of adopting decisions on the six remaining essential requirements for the initial resource mobilization of the Fund – does not include an agenda item on considering the draft gender policy and action plan.  While this is regrettable, the mandate of Decision B.06/07 to integrate gender consideration into the operational modalities proposed for the decision by the Board in Songdo still holds and demands Board action.  

It is only fitting to consider the gender-sensitive approach in conjunction with the Fund’s key policies required to “receive, manage, programme and disburse financial resources” (Decision B.05/17), as gender mainstreaming will contribute to the paradigm shift the GCF hopes to support with its interventions and will increase their overall effectiveness.

The following are some key recommendations by the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America  for integrating gender into the decisions on the six remaining essential policy requirements for resource mobilization that will be the focus of the seventh Board meeting in Songdo.  The expected decisions from Songdo will result in a number of concrete actions to be elaborated in the gender action plan, which is to be considered together with the Fund-wide gender policy at the eighth GCF Board meeting.