UNU-GEST contributes to the GGEO 2016

The Global Gender and Environment Outlook (GGEO) was published In May of 2016 at the United Nations Environment Assembly. The GGEO constitutes the first assessment that provides a comprehensive overview about the interplay between gender and the environment.

Within the scenario of SDGs and the 2030 Development agenda, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Strategic Partners gathered together scientists, policy experts, gender advocates and members of community groups with the objective to challenge the current critical issues embedded on the gender and environment nexus. The GGEO not only addresses the importance and reasons of linking gender and the environment, but also focuses on policy options and solutions-oriented responses in order to create more sustainable pathways for all.

With this aim in mind, the GGEO examines a wide range of topics: food production, water and sanitation, energy, sustainable consumption and production, fisheries and fishing communities, and forests. By expressing the necessity to acknowledge the dynamic relationships between gender equality and environmental issues, the GGEO is not only adding women and girls into the scenario. Rather, it is recognizing the engendered social, political and economic aspects of people’s relationships with the environment. People interact and are affected by the environment differently. It varies according to ones gender, class, ethnicity, race, age, geographic location, disability, among others social categories. Thus, the GGEO reminds that in order to take effective action on the environmental assessment and decision-making, power relations and context specific social norms and gender roles need to be analysed. The report can be accessed at the UNEP website.

UNU-GEST contributed to the formation of the assessment by hosting a GGEO expert meeting in February 2016 in Iceland but would also like to acknowledge the important role of three women associated with UNU-GEST on the creation of the GGEO: Dr. Joni Seager, Lilja Dóra Kolbeinsdóttir and Dr. Annadís Rúdolfsdóttir.

Professor Seager is the lead author of the GGEO. She is the chair of the Global Studies Department at Bentley University and a lecturer at UNU-GEST programme, where she has contributed to the UNU-GEST module of Gender and Climate Change for the past few years. Lilja Dóra Kolbeinsdóttir was one of the contributing authors to the report. She is a Programme Director at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland´s country office in Mozambique, but she is also a former Project Manager of UNU-GEST and formulated the aforementioned module. Further, Dr. Annadís Rúdolfsdóttir was one of the reviewers of this assessment. She is an Associate Professor in Research Methodology at the School of Education at the University of Iceland and a former Academic Director of UNU-GEST.