Unlocking women’s transformative potential for LDN and the SDG agenda
Gender Action Plan
Why is gender mainstreaming important for UNCCD ?
Widespread land degradation threatens food production, water availability, biodiversity and energy security. When land is degraded and usable land becomes scarce, women are uniquely and differentially affected due to their substantial role in agriculture and food production, their reliance on forests, their greater vulnerability to poverty, and their typically weaker legal protection and social status.
The fact that almost a third of women’s employment globally is in agriculture and that women are at the frontline, struggling to salvage the large area of agricultural land already affected by degradation makes women and girls the most natural allies in implementing UNCCD. Building effective responses to combat desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) requires an understanding of how gender inequality affects multiple issues:
- Access to, and control of, resources and knowledge
- Institutional structures
- Social, cultural and formal networks
- Decision-making processes
Therefore, women’s input, knowledge and guidance are indispensable to any productive, sustainable efforts to avoid, reduce and reverse degraded land as mandated under the UNCCD. When women are empowered, entire families benefit, and these benefits often have an effect on future generations.
Gender Action Plan
UNCCD parties are committed to improving the quality of life for women worldwide. The UNCCD Gender Action Plan represents a landmark opportunity to transform gender equality and human rights into action. Its overall goal is to support and enhance the implementation of the gender-related decisions and mandates adopted in the UNCCD process.
Follow-up on policy frameworks and thematic issues: Gender
- An overview on the progress made in support UNCCD Country parties in rolling out the UNCCD Gender Action Plan can be found here
- UNCCD Gender Caucus 2019 summary report can be found here
- The Gender Action Plan as a mechanism for improving the living conditions of affected populations: first experiences and the way forward can be found here
Resources to implement UNCCD Gender Action Plan
The Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, the UNCCD secretariat and its partners join forces to support UNCCD country parties in implementing the UNCCD Gender Action Plan and provide a wealth of support materials:
Climate- and human-induced land degradation endangers the future survival of our planet. A new focus on achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) seeks to spark and grow transformative efforts to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation through gender- and socially-equitable means. As of July…
Publication type
Other publications
Publication date
Widespread land degradation threatens food production, water availability, biodiversity and energy security. When land is degraded and usable land becomes scarce, women are uniquely and differentially affected due to their substantial role in agriculture and food production, their reliance on…
Publication type
UNCCD Publications
Publication date
The Convention recognizes the importance of women in the implementation of the Convention, and identifies critical areas for their engagement: (i) awareness-raising, and participation in the design and implementation of programmes; (ii) decision-making processes that men and women adopt at the local…
Publication type
UNCCD Publications
Publication date
Poor rural women in developing countries are critical to the survival of their families. Fertile land is their lifeline. But the number of people negatively affected by land degradation is growing rapidly. Crop failures, water scarcity and the migration of traditional crops are damaging rural…
Publication type
UNCCD Publications
Publication date