New York, NY
March 7th , 2014
On March 8th, governments, organizations, communities and citizens around the world will join forces to celebrate International Women's Day. This day has been celebrated since 1975 to recognize the role of women, help eliminate discrimination against women across nations and empower women to have active and equal participation in global development. This year International Women’s Day will highlight the importance of gender equality and women’s role as agents of economic and social development.
The GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) has been working to mainstream gender and promote women’s empowerment in local communities for the last two decades. Since 2007, SGP has implemented a policy on gender mainstreaming to guide its programming at the national level. As such, gender participation is one of the main criteria considered for the approval of grants and each project proposal should explain how it will ensure gender mainstreaming. Gender is also a key element in the SGP Country Programme Strategies which guide grantmaking in more than 125 countries, and each SGP National Steering Committee has a gender focal point designated to review gender considerations when approving project proposals. At present, 92% of SGP country programmes promote active participation of women in the design, implementation and M&E of projects, 46% actively partner with women’s organizations at the local level to enhance gender mainstreaming among SGP grantees, while 20% have developed a specific gender mainstreaming strategy or gender action plan for their country programme.
Below are some examples featuring how SGP, along with its community partners helps advance women’s empowerment and gender equality.
To empower women and provide them with economic opportunities that can allow them to play a key role in their communities, since 2008, SGP has partnered with the Barefoot College in India to implement
"Women Solar Engineer" projects across 16 countries
in Africa and Asia. Results from 15 completed projects show that women solar engineers have managed to electrify approximately 2,245 households, bringing light to more than 14,500 beneficiaries in 32 villages. Furthermore, women and girls no longer spend hours every day getting firewood, kerosene or batteries for lighting and can use their free time to pursue other activities including income generation through micro-enterprises, child minding or education. Hundreds of children are also now able to study at night without being exposed to smoke, fumes or low quality lighting from wood or kerosene lamps. In regards to the environment, solar electrification has reduced pressure on deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.
In Guatemala, SGP developed the “
Almanario” a project planning and a budgeting tool that allows Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) with low literacy skills to request and develop their own projects independently. SGP trains two women in each community on use of the Almanario and places important emphasis on reducing gender inequalities by empowering all community members, especially women, to address and develop projects at all stages. As a result, SGP projects have witnessed a shift in gender roles due to the development of roles that were previously inaccessible for women, such as the role of community representation.
In Senegal, an SGP project trained 105 women and 22 men to produce, use and promote the innovative “
Mekhe solar cooker”, thus generating access to sustainable energy and promoting technology transfer. To promote its use, the women also learned local recipes to be prepared in the solar cooker. More than 100 families benefited from the solar cook stoves, which reduced time, labor, and health risks associated with open fire stoves. By targeting marginalized and illiterate women, the project helped to empower women by providing them with news skills and knowledge and a new source of livelihood. Some women became entrepreneurs and created “solar bakeries”. Furthermore, the project created access to finance through the establishment of a micro-credit scheme. Senegal’s Ministry of Biofuels, Renewable Energy and Scientific Research has since replicated the project in eight other regions, benefitting 44 communities and instructing more than 3,200 women in the use of the solar cookers which reduce the use of firewood by 62.2%, saving of 12 trees per year per solar cooker.
In Mauritius, SGP supported
APEDED (Association Pour l'Education des Enfants Defavorises) to set up a small nursery to produce organic herbal tea as a sustainable and environmentally friendly enterprise. In this process they installed 48 photovoltaic panels and trained women on their maintenance and in sustainable production methods. APEDED now produces a collection of 19 herbal teas that are exported to countries such as China and France, with a current production capacity of about 8,000 packets of herbal tea per month. The solar-powered production unit generates around 14,065 kWh of electricity annually, of which some 10,000 KWh will be sold to the grid for an estimated revenue of US $ 6,000. The revenues from the tea and the solar power enable APEDED to continue to provide social and educational programmes for vulnerable youth. It now runs a small enterprise to conserve plant genetic diversity, and provides green jobs directly to 20 women as well as indirectly to 28 others from whom it buys medicinal plants. This initiative has received numerous awards including the Green Africa and the Emerging Exporters Gold Award from Mauritius.
Learn more about Gender Mainstreaming in SGP
Background for editors
About the GEF
The GEF unites 183 countries in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives. An independently operating financial organization, the GEF provides grants for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.
Since 1991, GEF has achieved a strong track record with developing countries and countries with economies in transition, providing $11.5 billion in grants and leveraging $57 billion in co-financing for over 3,215 projects in over 165 countries. For more information, visit www.thegef.org.
About the GEF Small Grants Programme
Launched in 1992, GEF SGP supports activities of nongovernmental and community-based organizations in developing countries towards climate change abatement, conservation of biodiversity, protection of international waters, reduction of the impact of persistent organic pollutants and prevention of land degradation while generating sustainable livelihoods.
Since its creation, GEF SGP has provided over 16,500 grants to communities in over 125 developing countries. Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as a corporate programme, GEF SGP is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on behalf of the GEF partnership, and is executed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
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