In September 2023, the 5th International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM5) in Bonn, Germany, set a new course in global chemical management with the adoption of the Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC). This milestone included a strong emphasis on gender equality, including the resolution for “Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective and Promoting Gender Equality and Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Chemicals and Waste Management.” This work has now paved the way for a collaborative gender action plan, focusing on inclusive participation and gender-responsive policies in the chemical sector.
Our upcoming community of practice discussion aims to further this momentum by focusing on sharing case studies and practical experiences in integrating gender considerations into chemical management. Participants from various stakeholder groups will come together to exchange insights and strategies and explore effective methods for advancing gender mainstreaming for a more inclusive and gender-responsive framework in chemical management.
PRESENTERS:
• Karen de Brouwer, Director of Financing for Development, Technologies, and International Control of Hazardous Chemicals, Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Mariella Noto, Senior Implementation Manager, Implementation HUB
• Lara Ognibene, Legal Officer and Gender Focal Point, Secretariat of the Minamata Convention on Mercury
FACILITATOR:
• Minu Hemmati, Associate, MSP Institute – Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Sustainable Development eV
Continue the conversation on Chemicals and Waste Management here:
https://ggkp.org/ChemAndWasteCoP
Okay then let’s get started I hope I’m doing this correctly welcome to this fifth discussion of the community of practice on chemicals and waste management my name is mmati and I’ll be moderating this session for you I’m an associate of the MSP Institute multi-stakeholder processes for sustainable development a small
Charitable Association based in Berlin Germany and dedicated to supporting high quality dialogue and collaboration among stakeholders we’ve been working on gender and chemicals since 2017 and are now serving as the Secretariat of the newly launched gender and chemicals partnership gncp today’s discussion is the fifth in the series of discussions
In 2023 on issues of concern chemicals of concern across diverse Supply chains capacity building and other relevant topics led by by the Sim or now GFC Secretariat the recording and the discussion summary of all four previous discussions are available on the green Forum please access them using the link
Are shared through the chat to remind you of this community of practice or cop in 2020 syum established four cops on highly hazardous pesticides chemicals and products leadin paint and chemicals and the sustainable development goals that have led successful knowledge exchanges while the activities of these
Communities came to an end in 2022 the pum GFC sorry Secretariat is continuing the moment with a single all-inclusive cop on chemicals and waste management in partnership with the green growth knowledge partnership ggkp the chemicals and waste management community of practice or cop has been established on the green Forum to host
Ongoing active knowledge exchange before during and after these discussion sessions so check this out so let’s dive into today’s discussion and while we do that please feel free to introduce yourselves in the chat room in September 2023 about eight weeks ago the fifth International Conference on chemicals management iccm 5 was held
In Bor Germany after eight years of discussion the future of uh on the future of the Strategic approach to International chemicals management cycle the conference set a new course in global chemicals and waste management M it adopted the global framework on chemicals for a planet free of harm from
Chemicals and waste the high level Bond declaration for a planet free of harm from chemical and waste a set of other conference resolutions focused on the implementation of the framework including a specific resolution on gender gender was very much an issue at iccm 5 and gender equality is now one
Principle of the global framework on chemicals uh gender considerations are included into targets which means that in the future gender equality will have to be considered in the implementation of the framework language on genda has also been included in the bond declarations stating that and I quote chemicals often have impacts on human
Health particularly that of women and children gender equality can support the sound management of chemicals and waste end of quote and as I said a specific gender resolution was adopted it is called mainstream a gender perspective and promoting gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls in chemicals and waste
Management this resolution requests the GFC Secretariat a quote with the participation of interested stakeholders to develop a gender action plan for consideration by the conference at its next session in order to advance towards full equal and meaningful participation by all women in decision- making and to promote gender responsive policies and
Mainstreaming agenda perspective in the implementation of the global framework on chemicals for a planet free of harm from chemicals and waste taking into account progress made in mainstreaming agenda perspective so iccm 6 will be held in three years time in 2026 and until then there should be a gender
Action plan ready for consideration at adoption at the conference the resolution also encourages all stakeholders to support interim actions until then so we’re not supposed to just develop the gender action plan and otherwise twiddle our thumbs we’re all encouraged to engage in activities such as developing National
Gender action plans and other actions to promote gender equality I recommend uh having a look at the very brief and concise resolution that was adopted because it does encourage our every stakeholder to engage in Partnerships develop and share tools encourage data collection and research so there’s been quite a
Momentum on genda at ICM 5 and many of us are busy maintaining it and getting to work on implementing today’s community of practice discussion aims to further this momentum by focusing on sharing case studies and practical experiences in integrating gender considerations into chemicals and waste management participants from various stakeholder
Groups are here to exchange insights and strategies and explore effective methods for advancing gender mainstreaming for a more inclusive and gender responsive framework and policies in chemicals and waste management I may also add that we’re building a bit on a recent webinar organized by MSP Institute and held I
Think last week on November 22 and we looked at some of the gender related iccm 5 outcomes uh and experiences with gender action plans in other un convention processes and gender related work done previously by the cych Secretariat today we’re happy to welcome three distinguished presenters to share
The expertise and engage in discussion with you we have Ken de braa Vasquez director of finan for development Technologies and international control of hazardous chemicals Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs she will present Mexico’s experience with feminist foreign policy and gender action plans and what we might learn from them for
The global framework on chemicals work on gender we have Mariela Noto senior senior implementation manager at the implementation Hub at zda H C Zero discarge from hazardous chemicals she will discuss public private partnership projects how to engage the industry sector to participate in the global framework activities and how this can be
Done in ways that promote gender equality and finally we welcome Lara onu the legal officer at the Secretariat of the minamata convention on Mercury at the United Nations environment program she will present key elements and strategies contained in the minamata conventions G genda action plan the agenda of today’s discussion is
Pretty straightforward our first presenter Karen will share their her contribution followed by questions and polls post to you we will then hear Mariela and discuss questions and respond to polls relating to her topics followed by the presentation by Lara and responses to questions and polls we have about five minutes for each presenter
And about 20 minutes for each respective discussion about the questions of polls relating to the three topic areas all together we’ll be done in 90 minutes the chat box is where you as participants can share your ideas you will not be able to speak but please share your thoughts contributions or
Questions to present us or the whole group through the chat with that let’s get started properly um I’m happy to introduce Karena Brower director of for financing for development Technologies and International control of hazardous chemicals at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs Karen is a professional in international relations and
Development with extensive involvement across multilateral Regional institutions and the federal government as the Director of financing for development Technologies and international control of hesus chemicals at the Mexican foreign Ministry Cent strategically connects Mexico with International experts contributing to Global initiatives focused on sustainability and development and advocating for fairer and more inclusive
Global development Karen welcome to today’s discussion and over to you thank you very much for the introduction muu uh I’m very happy to be here with everyone uh and um it is a pleasure for me to share a bit of what Mexico has done um as we move forward to building
This robust and a ambitious gender action plan on chemicals management well I think we can extrapolate valuable lessons from other gender action plans uh such as the one that Mexico launched in 2022 uh regarding climate change I will now share my screen if that’s all right can you all see it
Yes thank you very much um well first of all allow me to begin by saying that the act the issue of uh gender justice and gender equality is an issue that is very near and dear to Mexico’s foreign policy and to the um General uh ethos of our Administration Mexico is
As of now the first developing country and the first Latin American country to develop a feminist foreign policy uh which has some components that have to deal with the way that we work inside of the ministry but also uh how we try to streamline gender equality into everything that we do every single
Bilateral and multilateral issue and this has been a long-standing commitment for Mexico and our priority of our uh of our foreign policy we were the ones that hosted the first conference on women in 1975 so we have been involved uh in the gender agenda for a very long time and
Uh have amassed a lot of expertise and connections with civil society and international organizations to that regard in that sense uh what we saw is um the feminist foreign policy launched in 2020 was a consolidation of our historic efforts and a new step to structure a coherent and systematic
Framework at all levels um this was especially important in the context of covid because as we saw it highlighted a lot of uh gender inequalities and uh different crisises that affect women in particular ways so in that sense the Mexico’s gender action plan on climate change emerg as a response to these
Disparities within environmental policies especially within climate change so this was a concerted effort uh we worked closely with um the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the well Ministry of um environment uh Civil Society um and various International organizations there’s also um a Mexican Institute of women that was very closely involved
With this process so um this effort drew a lot of inspiration for Mexico dedication to promote gender equality and uh to see interplay between environmental challenges and gender Dynamics in that sense uh the way that we built this gender action plan on climate change uh is that we conducted
Consultations called what would women uh what women say in May 2022 uh which provided elements for the government’s platform app uh the Stockholm uh plus 50 and the world Urban Forum the there were uh more than 1,200 women that were involved in these consultations H that took place in
Different states of Mexico just so that we would get a feel of uh different priorities and um different geographical and cultural uh priorities within the country and this um opinions that were gathered uh gave us a sense of the link the fundamental link in in how women perceive this gender disparities their
Priorities and also amass their expertise um on how Mexico should be looking at the issue of climate change in a more holistic way that has gender as a transversal um crosscutting uh issue the primary goal of this gender actually gender action plan on climate change was to um embed gender perspectives
Comprehensively within climate change policies and initiatives and also to identify mitigate and jcy and rectify gender-based disparities in climate related impact responses and adaptation measures so another very important issue was to also ensure that women were adequately represented and that they had a say in in climate policy H that they
Were uh shaping it not only subject to it and also to include uh a various uh well a very diverse uh gender groups in the decision-making processes related to climate action uh it’s comprised of three main pillars so the first one is empowerment of all women leadership so that uh takes
Into account also making sure that there are women negotiators that uh their perspectives are being taken car uh Tak into account for example in the case of climate change Mexico normally is headed by a delegation at the cops headed by women especially young women so uh ensuring this representation the next is
A strengthening institutional capacities this has to do also with a lot of capacity building so we’re working also on um education and also there’s other aspects that are very important for example having disaggregated data that reflects also how this issue affects women and their contributions so um also
Having more um gender specific courses and universities dealing with climate change so we can highlight this perspective render it more visible and make it more of a mainstream approach and uh third of all also the financial support and collaborative Endeavors so F facilitating financial and technical support Bo in
Collaboration then uh we established three institutional mechanisms so the first of all has to do with government task forces so grouping line Ministries in charge of overseeing and implementing uh this gender inclusive policies regarding climate change then we have the coll collaborative platforms that facilitate multi-stakeholder dialogues
And uh which try to bridge uh the the gaps in communication between various actors including Academia civil society and Industry and the third one uh it’s very important is the monitoring and evaluating Frameworks we know that a plan is not a plan unless we have in place some mechanisms in order to ensure
The monitoring and evaluation to make sure it’s fit for purpose so in that sense Mexico’s gender action plan has to be revised every two years in order to make it um uh more fit for purpose so that’s a brief uh overview of our gender action plan in climate change we think
That there are many valuable lessons that can be drawn uh for the chemicals cluster and uh sound chemical management so I am I look forward to working with all of you in this endeavor and uh open to questions thank you thank you very much Karen for this uh overview indeed
Inspiring and we do have a question along the lines of what you just uh said that we want to pose to everybody uh including yourself uh and pose for discussion and here’s the question thank you very much how can Mexico’s experience with feminist foreign policy and gender action plans like the one on
Climate change inform and enhance Global efforts in addressing gender disparities particularly in the context of chemicals management so participants please are feel free to share your thoughts on this question what is it that we can and should indeed pick up and learn from Mexico’s uh experience so I open the
Discussion and invite you to comment in the chat on this question um and I’m wondering if while people get ready to do this if I may jump in with one followup question to Karen I know probably not supposed to but it’s a short one and that is Karen
You mentioned that you see to it that your delegations at the climate cops at the climate conferences are led by young women what’s the responses you get any backlash none at all uh we have also well a team of very Consolidated experts our director General who is a woman has
Made it a priority because we think that a fist feminist foreign policy is something that needs to be visible so how do we make it visible by having women at the Forefront so we also work with uh a number of Civil Society organizations and international organizations so we have a program
Called operation cop that trains them so there is an exam that uh young women need to take they are chosen and then they follow a rigorous uh one-year uh course um with a lot of workshops in order to train them to be excellent negotiators so people are actually very
Surprised whenever we come because they look very young but they’re extremely well well prepared ambitious and uh I think it’s a a marvelous way of showcasing what’s really important to us in giving a voice to Future Generations but especially women um so um so far the response has been overwhelmingly
Positive thank you thank you very much uh for for this background information I’m probably wondering if uh that wouldn’t also be a good idea for iccm 6 and as many delegations as possible so I’d just like to invite participants again um to look at this question and share your
Thoughts how can Mexico’s experience with feminist foreign policy and gender action plans inform and enhance Global efforts in addressing gender disparities particularly in our context today the context of chemical management uh and I see that somebody’s uh uh adona was commenting that in African or in
Africa you have to be careful with the word feminist this is a little bit the background of my question as well before I think um we might start seeing that in Germany as well um that feminist is regarded maybe as too radical um but uh while people gather their thoughts to um
Share their thoughts to this question in the chat uh We’ve also prepared some quick polls that might be easy to uh respond to and maybe we could have the first poll so this is something that you answer just by clicking on uh the the answer that you find most important this
Is a single Choice uh question and the question you see here is which aspect of Mexico’s gender action plan do you find most adaptable for Global application in chemicals management so what’s the one that we should really pick from Mexico’s experience um I believe gayon will leave
This on for a few minutes for you to respond and then later on uh we can have a look at the results so if you want to comment on what in Mexico’s gender action plans is the the thing that we should really copy um please answer the poll thank you very
Much I’m also wondering to get the discussion going maybe I can turn to Karen again while people are gathering their thoughts and actually if you look at uh the results of iccm 5 and what is supposed to be developed until iccm 6 uh and the other actions that stakeholders
Are invited to take what is it that you would recommend that we take from learn from Mexico’s experience that you just described I think um it is very important and I think that we are working also on on this um streamlining gender considerations into this chemicals agenda I think there are
Other supporting processes that are very important as well to make sure it’s fit for purpose and it actually furthers uh gender equality quality in this regard and I think it would be to have all this supporting infrastructure so having this institutional mechanisms in place that also are a very inclusive process that
Are also women Le uh and um I would also recommend also the issue of capacity building and data uh we cannot uh Advance what the that what we can’t measure so having disaggregated data and having um making it more visible the effects of um chemicals and and hazardous chemicals
Especially how it impacts women’s lives and works and how they’re involved through this uh chain of management of chemicals is very important so I think uh those would be two other suggestions to have this uh institutional mechanisms in place monitoring and evaluation having a process that is women Le
Inclusive and uh that showcases that is visible and um just having the capacity and the data in order to measure progress and to um highlight the disparities and and inequalities within this field so that that would be some of the recommendations and some of the lessons that we have learned in Mexico
And uh also having this very inclusive and and um diverse process towards having a gender action plan also is is very important because it Fosters trust and also legitimacy uh actors when they’re involved um it Fosters Buy in and responsibility so we all feel like this
Is a collective share Endeavor so it it increases the chances of it being more ambitious and impactful thank you thank you very much um one thing that uh that came to my mind is that this is a a really concerted effort um and you know multi-prong strategy that that you seem
To be using and uh that needs to be done uh carefully and mindfully um uh with the engagement from many many people and I’m wondering how people feel if this is something that could be replicated in their countries uh and how they how they would feel about that but I see you see
The discussion is going on in I think um gayon you have closed the poll I’m wondering if we should also look at the poll results about what people felt uh we should pick up from Mexico’s experience and here they are thank you very much so thank you very much for
Answering the polls so um it seems the integration of gender considerations in environmental policies so having that day right from the start is our front runner that’s something that people feel is really important important but also gender specific impact assessments uh and then a little lower the focus gender
Equality targets and indicators as you were saying measuring otherwise we can’t uh observe and manage and the inclusion inclusivity of the policymaking process particularly impressive that you also work in the in the districts and the regions so thank you very much also for this result also the poll result will be
Included in the report uh from this meeting so I’m wondering if uh if there’s anything else in the chat um Karen that you would like to pick out also to respond to um and Mariela yes uh you asked here and I can only say yes please uh feel free to join the
Discussion uh with all participants and uh and Karen can also pick out again if she if you want to anything that you would like to respond to um so we have responses from Zambia um from Bangladesh uh from around the world thank you very much minu uh I’m
Just looking uh at the questions real quick uh for example the the monitoring of the progress as I said it’s every two years that we review uh how accurately it responds to actual challenges and how it is furthering gender equality we have had very positive feedback so far and
We’re uh currently in the process of reforming reformulating our gender action plan on climate change there is also a widespread um uh evaluation that is going on and and reformulation of institutional mechanisms so that we can make it uh more robust and um also yes uh the engaging Civil Society
Actors they’re very involved within within the policymaking process process and we also have the delegation uh of women also includes actors from civil society that is also very important for us to to give them a voice and also uh when it comes to International negotiations Mexico also always tries to
Include the perspective of indigenous peoples so in this case indigenous women and um what else and I really love the idea of Michael musenga of including also um City Mayors I think um um local governments are a very practical and and very um good allies in this process and
Engaging with women who are in these positions of leadership uh should should be something that we consider more explicitly in a further um iterations of the plan so I think those are the questions that I I see now uh so thank you very much thank you thanks thanks
Very much uh Karen and I I would also want to underline the importance of local leaders to be represented I think in the climate process this led to uh local governments and other local leaders to be a really strong constituency uh and contributing enormously so that’s something maybe the
Global framework on chemicals could also pick up um because somebody was mentioning this uh uh there maybe backlash or resistance to the term chemical uh feminists before I was wondering if we could have the second poll because this is around challenges um here it is so the second
Poll question to you is what do you see as the biggest challenge in implementing feminist policies in environmental governance like chemicals management at a national level so you have here from cultural barriers to lack of political will uh and others so feel free to also put in your own thoughts under others
And gon will also keep this poll active uh for a few minutes um before we close this section uh we’ll have a look at at these poll results it’s very important for us to understand the challenges of course to be able um to design the interventions uh accordingly and make
Sure that we take everybody along um when we do gender responsive chemicals management and and policym so um gayon let me know when you’re closing the poll and I’d just like to invite people again to share their thoughts in the chat all of this will be
Part of the summary of the session and the session will certainly be a fundament for developing the gender action plan for the new Global framework on chemicals so any other thoughts feel free to share here Yes Clara I think you’re right the answer depends on where you’re coming
From or where you’re working in terms of regions I assume and in terms of stakeholder groups and your roles in or our respective roles in this process maybe Clara you can specify what you mean by by where you’re coming from and where you’re working a little bit more because I know women in
Europe women engage for a Comon future has a lot of experience in various parts of the world so thanks very much and G tells me she’s closing the poll uh soon in we have a look at it before we move on um yeah Mariela I like your suggestion I
Think this is indeed something that we should pick up in the gender and chemical partnership and maybe be part of the the knowledge platform uh that the gender and chemicals partnership will want to develop it’s not only going to be about gender and chemicals directly but also about these kinds of
Experiences what processes uh have been successfully used to develop gender responsiveness in policym and and in implementation so thanks very much for that suggestion um and I see that uh gayon has closed the poll and also my job is to look at the clock so if possible
Maybe as a last bit we could see the results thank you very much gon ah so all of these challenges seem to be recognizable to people cultural and social barriers insufficient data and research as we discussed but also limited resources and funding these processes cost money and time and
Expertise and lack of political will when you see this Karen maybe as a last question uh to you um are you familiar with all those challenges on on your path in Mexico and maybe you have one terms of political will I’d be really intrigued um what maybe could be done
About it if you want to answer um yes thank you very much minu for us of course there are certain in cultural is social barriers um especially we know that um Mexico is a country that faces a lot of challenges related to machismo and patriarchy and gender-based violence however the government there is
A tradition so I think the lack of political will was not really an issue because uh as I shared uh since the beginning of our presentation Mexico has had this long-standing conviction especially regarding feminist foreign policy so what we decided to do is like we recognize that there are a lot of
Challenges uh towards advancing gender equality inside of our country there’s a lot of things that need to be done however feminist foreign policy was a lwh hanging fruit that already had the political will and that we saw as an opportunity to advance things in the multilateral and international sphere
That may then uh reverberate and have effects towards gender equality inside the country so we just uh took advantage of the fact that our uh uh our foreign policy and our MFA had a long-standing tradition so it it was really easy and uh to convince people of the need of
Having a feminist foreign policy and just seeing it as a way to also touch down and and create effects that uh would further gener equality nationally so that was our experience and uh however we did have more of issues of the well limited resources and funding and also the
Insufficient data and research however we have a very very vibrant active uh Civil Society that has been very helpful uh in trying to implement some of the some of the lines of action and uh to identify the gaps so we we yeah we were very supported by civil society and Academia
In this regard so yes and well seeing the limited resources and funding uh also working with uh multilateral organizations International organizations that also helped us bridge this uh funding um Gap in order to implement a feminist foreign policy and the gender action plans more more specifically as a part of our feminist
Foreign policy I don’t know um I hope just um explaining how in a country that has this contrast uh how we manage to operationalize a feminist foreign policy and gender action plans can prove um helpful for some of your countries that would be interested in exploring similar
Pathways thank you thank you very much Karen for discussing here answering questions sharing your experience and also engaging in the chat everything all at once uh thank you very much for your contributions also I you probably have seen that Maru responded to the question by Mariela about uh exchanges on
Feminist foreign policy there is a platform and Mexico will host the third conference in 2024 if there is a website already or somewhere where we can learn more about that uh Maru we’d be grateful if you could share that in the chat so we can
All go to Mexico next year to learn more thank you very much uh uh for for this contribution for openly sharing your experiences and uh and what has worked thanks very much to Mexico um I would like to now uh uh pull the discussion to Mariela Noto uh introduced
Her earlier introduce her properly now Mariela Noto is the senior implementation manager at the implementation Hub as zdhc um zero discharge from hazardous chemicals a widen Network and institution Foundation actually formerly uh working in the textiles and leather uh Industries as senior implementation manager Mariela is leading the zdhc
Academy and managing the evolution of the educational platform she’s driving capacity building worldwide and zhc implementation projects across the Benelux countries and in Africa collaboration is key and therefore Mariela is strongly involved in Partnerships with International organizations to grow the global implementation of the zc academy since
September of this year she’s part part of the interim Board of the gender and chemicals partnership um so over to you Mariela sharing your experiences and suggestions for gender and chemicals thank you Amino for the introduction um before I start to explain a little bit about the case
Study that I wanted to share with you um as a as a preset actually for the question um I will explain as well a little bit more about zdhc because I’m very much aware that not everybody knows the organization um so next slide please I will shortly explain the
Background of cdhc foundation and who we are and what we what we actually do um of course I will also explain a little bit more on why actually we are now in the um interim Board of the gender and chemicals P partnership and how it relates to our work and then uh before
We go to the discussion and the question I will uh uh tell a little bit more about case study that we’re currently um setting up in southern Africa uh around the topic of uh eliminating hazardous chemicals from the textile industry um and how that also relates to the topic that we are
Discussing here today um and um how it all interlinks together next slide so I’m going to keep it relatively short because I don’t want us to um rush out of time in relation to the discussion in the chat because that’s most important but who are um the zdhc foundation is a multi-stakeholder
Initiative that was initiated in 2011 when a lot of uh big fashion brands were um attacked by uh NOS uh because they were still using um hazardous chemicals in their supply chain and the NGS found by testing Wastewater and by testing also end products that a lot of um
Hazardous and chemical components were still in the Wastewater and on the end products so they they um uh rang the alarm Bell and a couple of Brands came together within the industry and started the initiative to do research um and to find uh uh tools and develop guidelines to eliminate hazardous chemicals from
Intentional use within their supply chain um that was not something that they could do by themselves because it’s of course a huge task to actually work on uh something like that because as some already said in the chat it’s something Global it’s happening everywhere
And it has to do with a lot of different uh Parts within the industry and how humans also behave but in the end um after a couple of years uh the organization went from a brand deren initiative to an industry program who is now led by an Administration so it’s not
Only uh brand driven anymore and it includes next to the brands and the retailers also suppliers the chemical industry Who develops the chemicals solution providers and other like-minded organizations and we now have around 32 signatories however one thing that is missing is often the link to the governments um and to the countries
Where we are um specifically working in so it’s still very much within the industry sector that uh things are being discussed and developed um our mission and vision a world in which better chem chemistry leads to protection of lifel land air and water and uh we hope to do that as
Well uh by working together with our Global value chain and to achieve the highest standards on chemical management next slide please now how does that actually work within our program um we um instead of what was done often in the past within the textile industry looking at the end
Product so only at the thing that we wear and test that product for hazardous chemicals we developed uh an approach that is looking at the whole value chain and all the um yeah basically all the elements the pillars within the Val value chain and the processing of um
Clothing that means that we look at the input chemistry so the procurement of chemicals on the ground by the textile facilities uh we look at how they process uh those chemicals during the production and how they manage them and we look at the output side so if these
Chemicals are procured and used uh what then is still um to be found in the waste water so can we still detect hazardous chemicals in waste water and to which limits and what can we do to um to prevent that by changing for instance the input side the procurement of the
Chemicals so we look through the whole um process of the production of materials and um clothing within the industry so those Focus areas are all linked to guidelines that we develop uh to prevent these hazardous chemicals uh from coming into the value chain um and tools to measure and monitor which
Chemicals can be found uh during the production process what are the root cause analysis um or what are the root causes that they are still to be found during production and how we can actually solve it by doing corrective actions um at the factory level now all these components till now
Um and I would actually say till this year were relatively uh generic so we looked at um chemicals management only from one perspective and that’s how we also communicated it during capacity building and our uh event and or work with the supply chain and we never applied the
Gender lens to it uh that’s something what that we do see is very um needed within our industry because within all different parts of the supply chain there’s a very big uh change of how the gender setup is so it’s very um distinct for certain process types certain um U
Materials that we find um yeah different uh impacts as well of the chemicals that we are using using next slide um so what we try to find is a way to um Monitor and see okay if we start to work on eliminating eliminating hazardous chemicals from the industry
How do we see what’s actually happening on the ground because we can of course set up guidelines we can set up tools they can be picked up by the industry um but how can we actually see that what we’ve been developing um in different ways is having that specific impact that
We want to see on the ground which is eliminating those HZ chemicals from the from the value chain and um improving the chemical management at the factory level and that’s why we do a lot of implementation studies in regions and uh one of those case studies is going to
Start next year together with uh unido uh in southern Africa and it will be a case study around uh the promotion of circular economy in the textile and garment sector through the sustainability management sustainable management of chemicals and waste and it will be uh targeted um to the countries
Leoto Madagascar Ethiopia and South Africa itself the focus of the project is not only uh circular economy as a whole but also to re reduce persistent organic pollutants within the value chain and the impact on human health and environment and in particularly uh Pasa uh import and the use in
Textiles this project specifically included a gender component as well because they want to measure as well uh the impact of um pops um from from the gender perspective um and they also want to see how it’s actually uh how the diversification within the industry in these countries is currently established
As well so they’re looking at several different components within this program that are also related to the gender lens now the project itself is um a combination of public sector engagement M private sector engagement implementation programs and NOS So within the project we try to work together with the government with the uh
Private sector in terms of Brands suppliers and uh related organizations and implementation programs um that are actually already uh active in the African countries and NOS to support us uh with that implementation work as well now what we’ve seen and that’s also related to this specific topic around
Gender in chemicals is that it’s always been a challenge to engage uh private sector uh in working with the public sector in projects like this um there is a lot of um discussions within their own uh industry groups and making this step to working together with the public
Sector in bigger projects and see how that could actually support them with monitoring impact Etc on the ground has always been a b Big Challenge and um we would like to overcome that challenge but it’s not an easy one to do and specifically also on this uh topic that
We’re handling today so that’s um why the question that we have set up is also linked to that the collaboration with the public sector and the private sector uh in the work that we do so with that I want to hand over to uh muu again for the
Discussion thank you thank you very much marela for also for giving us a bit of an idea of what that DHC is about and what you have learned and what you are now uh embarking on and I also just wanted to say thank you that you’re doing this today despite the fact that
Your voice is nearly gone so half an hour more and uh and then you can recuperate properly thank you very much now here’s the question uh that that is posed to participants or everybody uh and that marela would like to discuss with you how can we use public private
Partnership projects or maybe even multistakeholder partnership projects because you seen there’s uh NOS as well that are engaged and she’s mentioned you need also igos let me read the question properly how can we use public private partnership projects to create leverage and engage the industry sector to participate in the global framework
Activities in our new GFC and what ways can these Partnerships be structured to ensure that they actively promote gender equality and address gender specific challenges in the industry and if I may um ask you to share your thoughts and your ideas freely please this is not only relevant for developing the gender
Action plan for the new Global framework marela is also taking this into zth hc’s work pretty directly um in terms of dealing with the challenges that that she’s been talking about so I’d like to invite everybody to share their thoughts maybe also question marks concerns uh and suggestions experience iences in the
Chat um how can public private Partnerships be used uh to create the leverage so that industry gets more engaged and how can they or what way do they need to be structured so that they uh they do support our gender equality goals and address gender specific challenges so please share your thoughts
I see people have started to do that um and I’m wondering if we should also have the poll um maybe we could there it is thank you gayon you read my mind so here’s also a poll question uh again um you can click I think on one in your opinion what
Should be the primary focus area for gender mainstreaming in ppps in public private Partnerships within the textile and garment sector so what is it that should be focusing on enhancing women’s leadership and decision- making improving workplace health and safety standards for women and providing Education and Training specifically for
Women and others please feel free also to share your thoughts in the poll under others and while you’re responding we can also look at the chat again to see um what’s going on there and if uh Mara is already responding to questions that people POS so please feel free
To share your thoughts and also your questions and if you if marela if you want to respond to questions in the chat please go ahead you can also speak um and I also want to encourage everybody else to answer your colleagues questions but marel you raise your hand over to
You yeah but because because it’s the second question actually um going um or actually being posed on data and research I thought I might as well um answer that uh uh yeah by by voice I would almost Say by part of voice because I find it very interesting
Indeed that that that pops up uh immediately because I think um there could be a very strong role for ppps um in relation to data Gathering and research um so I would it would be very interesting to hear from other people what they think that role could be
Indeed because um I do think that they’re absolutely right there is a big lack of data um and exposure data um toxicological data that still need to be gathered thank you thank you very much uh G tells me the poll is closing soon and maybe we could also then have a look
At the results um thank you very much and there’s responses also to the question thank you very much for sharing your thoughts everybody Um thank you thanks MH thank you yeah maybe we should uh see the poll result thank you very much for providing this thank you gayon here we are so the question was around the primary focus area for gender mainstreaming in ppps within this uh sector textiles and garments and you see that improving
Workplace health and safety standards for women is at the top here so that also I’m assuming people feel that’s the biggest Gap and then enhancing women’s leadership and decision- making roles uh is also um being picked and uh providing Education and Training specifically for women I’m wondering what this was under
Others but um I see you did not answer this question so maybe somebody clicked this but didn’t put anything thank you very much thanks also for for answering this question um so let’s look at the discussion again um people are sharing yeah what one thing that strikes me is
Shera’s comment on holistically and you said Interlink so um Mara you mentioned you know that this kind of multiple stakeholders working together people who don’t necessarily know each other and come from very different worlds uh one might even say live in different worlds work in different worlds are supposed to
Collaborate and that’s actually really not easy um and requires a lot of ience and Courage by everybody um but also a clear Focus that’s my personal experience it does work when people know why they’re doing it and and then taking small steps so that you can have quick successes is also psychologically very
Important yeah I think that what we see with the projects that are successful um is those that have a clear focus and clear key results that they want to achieve uh holistic a holistic approach but at the same time not making it too broad um because what you can do indeed
With these types of program programs is that you try to take all in all those elements that are currently almost you know um too popular uh in relation to climate and gender and um chemicals management you just put them all in the project and you try to create results but in the end
You’re doing too much and you’re not able to uh to deliver and report back what you need while I think if you really focus well I see here sometimes coming by you know uh certain chemicals have a certain impact on pregnant women okay if we already only take that one
It’s already a very big task to deliver the correct data to find the correct answers to the questions um without looking at six or seven other situations that we could think about so indeed eliminating certain um or isolating certain topics and work on those know
And it it takes time um but each program can build on another program and each project can build on a second phase or a third phase um and be an example for future studies so I think um that targeted and focused approach without losing sight of you know being holistic
And look at all the different areas uh within Implement implementation is very important yeah thank you thank you very much Mariela um I think we have three or four minutes left for this part and I’m wondering again if we could have the third po poll question I know we’re
Skipping the second one but uh that’s around collecting and analyzing gender data thank you very much for putting this up um because you’ve been discussing uh uh data as well and here’s the question what is the biggest challenge in collecting and analyzing gender data within ppps so from limited
Availability again to cultural and organizational resistance or to gender and data collection maybe we can just give people two minutes or so to uh click their answers and and Gan can get us the results um and I’ll be intrigued marela what you think about that um whatever
The the results of the poll will be because uh it’s not only a matter of having the capacity and the money to do it uh but there are other barriers or or challenges anything else that people want to share while we’re having another minute or so for the poll uh please feel free
Great yeah and you just close the poll when you think you can um and then we’ll we look at the results and while we’re doing that um just like to invite you again to share thoughts in terms of Partnerships and the industry engagement um and how these Partnerships
Would work to actually really serve to promote gender equality thank you very much gayon and here’s the results thank you uhuh so the cultural and organizational resistance people don’t feel uh is is an important one or when that they uh that they feel is is actually a challenge often but
Insufficient focus on gender metrics in Project reporting it needs to be part of what is demanded uh limited availability of gender disaggregated data and to a lesser extent the lack of tools and expertise for gender analysis just like to use this as a last question also to
You Mariela when you see this is that also what you expect now that the DHC embarks more on integrating the gender lens in in your implementation work yeah I was expecting the first one by the way to be bigger than the third one limited availability of dat great
It’s maybe what I see in practice that that um is something that um is blocking Us in in our um or or is why we are starting this journey as well um but I am very interested by the third one insufficient focus on gender metrics um because sometimes we feel that that that
Is there and if it’s not actually there also in ppps then that is already a first step before we can actually do the rest so um making sure that those matrices are uh sufficiently set up um is of course the whole basis of your projects um it’s step one so if we don’t
Do that correctly then we might as well um not included in reporting at all I would almost say so I think that’s uh in that sense it’s a good learning to see that coming back here as well that we always have to make sure that those first steps are correct in what we
Do and and to have those metric’s sufficiently focused um so that we can work them out during the project I see that coming back a little bit in the projects that we’re currently doing as well the metrics is very or yeah I would almost say it’s very
Limited it’s not very uh detailed um so then when you come back to the reporting it has a similar result it’s vague it doesn’t have the the content that you need um and you cannot really report back on it so it’s an interesting outcome thank
You very much yeah it is thank you very much I also thought it would come out a little differently but thanks uh thanks very much marela for sharing your experience uh your thoughts also your open questions uh and and just as a side comment on the last poll uh when Germany
Introduced earlier this year uh his feminist development policy one of the main things that the ministry did was to demand all of its projects or nearly all of its projects to introduce gender uh as a part of their metrics and and their reporting and what or girl that’s quite
A challenge for for some of these projects we haven’t done this before so um very interesting thanks very much everybody for sharing your thoughts and thanks very much again to Mariela for sharing your experiences and also what lies ahead and your openness thank you very much now let’s turn to our third
Presenter and what has been learned by the Secretariat in the convent Mina mat convention and their agenda action plans plan I um i’ would like to introduce Lara onen the legal officer at the Secretariat of the minamata convention on Mercury at the UN environment program Lara joined the minamata Secretariat in
July 2019 she provides overall legal advice and Guidance with respect to the implementation of the program of work of the convention and the meetings of the conferences of the parties she also coordinates the work of the Secretariat around specific issues for example Mercury Supply sources and trade National reporting International
Cooperation and supporting the work of the implementation and compliance committee and Lara provides technical support to the special International specific international program and other capacity building activities of the Secretariat in 2021 she was appointed as gender focal point and has led the development and Adoption of the gender
Action plan of the minamata convention we’re very keen to hear your experiences Lara over to you thank you very much minu I hope you can uh hear me so um as mentioned I work for the Secretariat of the minamata convention on Mercury this is one of the youngest multilateral environmental
Agreements um uh Global uh meas um and which deals with reducing and limiting the emissions and releases of mercury into the environment with the with the aim of protecting uh the environment but also human health so this is the overall objective of the convention and uh moving on to the next
Slide I wanted to show you how um gender concerns are embedded in the text of our convention we have you we have in the Preamble of the convention a reference to vulnerable uh populations especially women and children when it comes to uh creating uh or noting uh the part the
Party’s awareness of health concerns especially in developing countries resulting from exposure to Mercury of these vulnerable populations because of the toxicity of this heavy metal especially to pregnant women but also to children and their neurological development and again in other articles of the convention including article 16 on health aspects 18 on public
Information awareness and education Article 19 on Research development and monitoring and also on article 22 on Effectiveness evaluation again there is a reference to the needs of vulnerable populations and in particular women and children and then again in our Annex Fe to the convention which relates to the
Development of national action plans on artisanal and small scale gold mining which is one of the uh biggest emitters of mercury into the environment when where Mercury is used to separate Mercury from uh gold from ore so this is where most of the emissions of mercury into the environment come from from the
Asgm sector so uh parties are to develop if they determine that the use of mercury in the sgm sector is more than insignificant they need to develop national action plans and in these action plans they have to include strategies uh to address also uh and prevent the exposure of vulnerable
Populations particularly children and women of childbearing age uh and so this is just to uh let’s say say contextualize why it is important and why parties uh of the con convention uh agree to to develop uh a gender action plan to have a more coherent approach to addressing gender
Um perspectives and gender elements that are relevant to the the implementation of the convention for example here I have a slide more specifically on in the next slide on uh asgm artisanal and small scale gold mining so this is a very particular way of addressing this informal sector where it is recognized
Under the convention how women are particularly vulnerable to asgm occupational hazards because they are the ones often burning the um the amalgam and and then Brea in the fumes of mercury which are which are highly toxic and so for example we even before developing a full-fledged gender action
Plan we had several on activities under the convention for example this is one of how to incorporate gender dimensions in uh the development of and management of national action plans this is in the broader context of national strategy setting in chemicals management and this is a uh publication that was development
Dev developed by the minamata convention but also in partnership with the unep so uh within this context uh and moving on to the next slide I wanted to give you a sense of how the development of the action plan under the convention took place so during our cup three which
Which uh was which took place in 2019 we had the first mentioning of gender as a focus area in in our program of work and budget for the 2020 2021 uh bium and here we had the first uh request to the Secretariat to develop a gender strategy which we did and we presented
Such what we call Gender Road map to the following cop a cop four this gender roadmap road map called for a number of priority actions to be undertaken by the secretary and one of them was the actual the development of a full uh gender
Action plan and so at Cop 4 we receive a formal request from our cop to develop the gender action plan during the past bium 2022 2023 and then we presented the gender action plan last month at our cop five here in Geneva and this is where it
Was adopted and so since uh then we have a gender action plan for the convention so uh moving on to the next slide I will give you a bit more of a try and give you an overview of what’s uh what was in the uh Gender Road map
Which was the document that uh uh preceded the adoption of the gender action plan so before starting with the development of an action plan we did this um road map that was based on an analysis of current initiatives undertaken by other multilateral environmental agreements and other un
Bodies in the field of gender to situate also the the con our convention into a broader perspective and then identify priority actions that could be undertaken by the Secretariat uh and other but not only but also by parties and other stakeholders to further mainstream gender in in our
Activities and then two two top priorities were identified first the appointment of a gender focal point within the Secretariat and then the development the development of a gender action plan with concrete uh indicators and measures of progress and targets and so and this this this plan was was also developed in accordance
With applicable un rules and unap gender policies so that it was developed in the context of other uh of unip policies but also in partnership with other meas who joined also in the review of the road map now moving on to the next slide
Please so when at C 4 the road map was adopted and we did the the the the decision to develop a gender action plan uh the Secretariat started uh some intersectional work um to develop uh the gender action plan this started with the organization of uh online consultations uh for parties but also
For other stakeholders this was done uh between the months of September and November last year and this is where for the first time the draft gender action plan prepared by the Secretariat was prepared was presented to parties and stakeholders for input uh so to in order to identify uh participants for these
Consultations the Secretariat issued a call for nominations to participate in this consultative process and this is where parties nominated their gender experts let’s say to to contribute to the process we received a number of uh nominations for for from countries you have list them here um and then we also
Invited the major um organizations and observers that participate participate to our cops uh and other stakeholders to also provide inputs during the consultation during the online consultation but also later we opened up the the the the draft for further written comments until a certain deadline so that we could collect as
Many uh inputs as possible uh we had online consultation maybe a little note because we didn’t actually have funding to organize inperson consultations so we we organized um this these uh less costly consultations but obviously if inperson consultations are possible they’re also a much better way to to
Engage then moving on to the next uh slide please so here uh it’s just to give you a sense of why we developed a plan and what are the main features of the plan so the action plan is a a blueprint for for actions which includes targets and
Indicators of progress to promote gender equality and mainstreaming within the Secretariat uh H but also within uh all activities undertaken by part ERS by parties and by other stakeholders in implementing the convention so it’s a blueprint meaning there is no uh it’s not a binding uh document or
It’s not a bind binding uh agreement but it does provide a mapping of what kind of activities can and should be undertaken under different categories to implement and to mainstream gender into the implementation of the convention so it also identifies both enabling conditions and also specific policy and programmatic steps needed to mainstream
Gender and to work effectively towards gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all activities under the purview of the convention so we have uh three overarching objectives uh which are to increase the effectiveness of the convention by mainstreaming gender to provide guidance to parties and partners in bringing
Gender lens in their work and research and evidence Gathering and public awareness activities and also to provide a framework that makes visible the benefits of gender mainstreaming to all uh minamata convention actors uh next slide please I will briefly speak about the expected outcomes of this plan uh so first of all the
One expected outcome will be for stakeholders partners and parties to the convention to develop cap capacity to design and Implement gender sensitive gender responsive plans and programs under the convention also to give uh women and girls and especially members of indigenous communities which are involved in asgm in the sgm sector uh
Equal opportunities for meaning meaningful participation in develop in developing programs national action plans and policies to achieve the goals of the convention also to achieve uh uh economic empowerment uh initiatives or to uh Implement such kind of initiatives that aim at reducing or eliminate dangerous use and exposure to
Mercury um equally for men and women and also so um as projects and parties increasingly incorporate gender awareness in their activities there there will be an ongoing systematic systematic knowledge building and sharing on gender dimensions of human exposures to Mercury and Mercury compounds and then finally my last slide please moving
On about the implementation of the plan as I mentioned the plan has just been adopted by our cop so we are slowly moving into the implementation uh it is organized um in two main section there is a a plan for the Secretariat so where with specific actions uh to be implemented carried out
By the Secretariat and then a second part is for parties and other stakeholders with specific activities and actions to be undertaken by them so there are two separate parts of the plan also considering that the long-term objectives that I mentioned and also the limited resources available for the implementation of the
Plan uh the the plan the gender action plan does not include any specific timelines or deadlines instead the suggested approach for implementation is to identify a list of activities within the plan that could be carried out during each bium so between the C Cs and to integrate those activities into the
Program of work and budget as adopted by the cop this is to allow for activities to be budgeted to have a specific um way to implement and to attract resources for their implementation and this will be uh every cop will then propose a new list of
Activities uh B based on the progress on implementing the previous ones and in that way hopefully we will gather the sufficient resources to progressively Implement all of most of the activities listed in the plan so it’s a progressive implementation of the plan hand inand with the approved budget basically
That’s the idea so I will stop here and then maybe I’ll uh I’ll open the floor for comments and I’ve seen messages popping up in the in the chat so but I haven’t read them so yes I I am I am available now I will read
Them thank you thank you very much Lara for your presentation and for sharing the also the history and the step by step that that was taken in the minamata process to come to this gender action plan uh and and what you’re expecting now you’re right in the middle of it
Having just adopted it um there’s one question that uh struck me um which I think maybe you could speak to from sonur adona can you know the CR the criteria of the selection of these countries please I believe you uh you showed a slide uh when saying you know these countries nominated
Representatives so that seems to be something that people are interested in if you could explain this again yes this is actually a very good point and there is a lesson learned around this uh this nomination process what we decided to do was to issue this call for nomination
Through our national focal points so the convention has uh one of the Articles of the conventions convention requires party to designate National focal points who are CH who are supposed to Channel all information coming from the secretaria two parties and vice versa can you hear me yeah so we issued this
Disc call for nomination through them and they then circulated the call within their min mines and so the nominations that we received from from different parties uh were sometimes uh nominating experts from the ministry environment or Ministry of Health so it did vary and we didn’t set any specific criteria other
Than please nominate um a gender expert from your country to participate into this consultative process and we explain the the process we attached a draft gender action plan so that however then um when we did um so this why we only received a number of nominations but all not all parties we
Have 144 parties so not all of them nominated a representative what the challenge there was also that most of of all of these nominated participants that were gender experts we were targeting then were not the same people attending our cop where instead there are technical um delegates that come that
Are specific knowledge on chemicals management so there is this kind of divide in expertise where you you seek input on gender issues from a gender expert within the ministry but this is not uh the same person that follows the the C process and so there is this disconnect so maybe a lesson lesson
Learned would have been to uh maybe combine you know invite both gender experts but also technical people that understand the the and then follow the the minamata process to create a link between the two but yeah thank you which thank you very much for explaining this and what you just
Just mentioned last I think is also an issue or will be an issue with the the global framework on chemicals that the people who are genda experts are not necessarily the ones who are in the delegations and the technical experts that have been there so far and having
Both might be great although costly but also then has the challenge again that marela was also referring to and that is to collaborate then from these very different perspectives is also something that will probably need at least patience and and support um I’m I’m sorry I did K skip the question that we
Had to the group uh and with this one so I’d like to uh to ask J to post this one um because it is really uh trying to uh look at what is it that we can learn need to learn for the gender action plan to be developed in the global framework
So based on the key elements and strategies uh presented in the minamata convention’s gender action plan as Lara just uh explained which of these do you believe could be most effectively adopted or adapted for developing the genda action plan for the GFC so this is
The moment to say okay what can we learn from that to for the Secretariat of the GFC to take along as as they’re developing uh their process for developing a genda action plan how do you see these specific elements or strategies enhancing the integration of gender considerations into the GFC policy implementation overall
Particularly in the areas of stakeholder engagement policy development and monitoring and evaluation big questions very little time so um if I could invite participants to quickly share your thoughts listening to Lara’s uh presentation what is it that you would really uh like the GFC Secretariat and all the stakeholders that are
Engaged there to take along into the development of the gender action plan for the GFC um it would be great to get some of your some of your thoughts and while you’re Gathering those I’d love to uh uh maybe have one more poll question as well um and that
Would be the second one gon that we prepared um if you could post that and we can that’s great here it is which strategy used in the minamata convention do you think is the most effective for inclusive stakeholder engagement in the gfcs gender action plan so a specific reference to the inclusive
Participation uh and the stakeholder engagement uh in the gender action plan development and you have some to some options to pick from here um so it’s another opportunity to give concrete advice to the GFC Secretariat so if you could answer that poll that would also be highly appreciated thank
You and Lara if there’s anything else in the chat that you would like to respond to while people are doing that uh yeah there’s the question about the gender action plan available on your website if if it is could you share the link yes well it will soon be available
As you may know after our cup the the there was a cop five decision on the on the gender mainstreaming it will be soon available but we’re still editing translating uh decisions however I can share with you the the document went to the cup with the with the action plan
Which was adopted without changes so let me put it in the chat here so the link is you you’ll have the link to the actual thank you plan without the decision but the plan is available I’ll sh I’ll send it to you okay thanks very much um so that
Also will be of interest to people and yes these documents do take a bit of time uh just I don’t know if everybody noted uh for a few days ago the all the resolutions that were adopted at iccm 5 were posted on the website including the the agender resolution which I think is
Resolution number four uh in in the document on the syum website um so you can look that up too um I see gayan has closed the poll and I also be looking at the clock so uh thanks Lara for sharing that link if we could there it is thank
You very much G so the the question was around the strategy that minamata convention process used um uh in terms of inclusive stakeholder engagement and what should be used in the gfcs gender action plan see we have the nomination of representatives from diverse groups uh as a mechanism that people um
Highlight as well as organizing targeted workshops less to a lesser extent implementing feedback me mechanisms and to an even lesser extent conducting includ inclusive online consultations yes uh you discussed this a little bit Lara of course face Toof face meetings and and consultations are preferable but all of this needs to be resourced
And much of it is done on a su on a Sho string I understand yes definitely and we had the we have our main donors that we rely on Sweden being one of them so that was mainly thank thanks to Swedish funds that we were able to develop the gender action plan
But uh availability of funding is is an issue definitely yeah thank you thank you very much uh thanks very much um also for uh sharing these experience and also maybe some of the the hurdles um that you are experiencing it’s uh in terms of budget and so on so and that’s I’m sure
Something that will be the case in in GFC maybe less maybe more so we can hope um so thank you very much also participants for uh sharing your thoughts in the chat uh and links and everything um looking at the clock I’d like to close this uh session in a
Minute but I do want to pose a a last question to the three presenters to Karen to Mariela and to Lara and that is a again around uh the GFC gender action plan so if you have one piece of advice for the GFC Secretariat as they embark
On a process towards a genda action plan from your experience what is it that you would that you would say to the colleagues who are here uh and who will be responsible for example Bina who the genda focal point uh for leading this process towards a genda action plan any
Piece of advice maybe one main thing that that you would like to share and I’d like to go to you Karen first and then Mariela and then Lara if you would unmute yourself Karen then uh thank you yes I wasn’t expecting to go first I was hoping one of my Coles
Because it’s difficult to draw one lesson but um I think I’m going to cheat a little and just uh mention three things that I think are are very important so first of all uh feedback mechanisms I think uh this evaluation and monitoring that needs data having this uh streaming
Of uh gender in environmental policies that that was a lot of um like the most popular option in the poll so uh this internal component but also um just having this uh uh leadership and gender women at the Forefront of this policies I think uh those would be the three
Elements that uh I think would be very important to to include in gcf’s um gender action plan thank you thank you thank you thank you very much Karen I I don’t think it’s cheating it’s rich thank you very much but maybe marela you have one point I do I will just add one
Because I already incl um agree with those of Karen as well no where we’re coming from but um include all the stakeholders uh in the discussions that we have and in um the work that we do because one of the things that came you know also at the
SYM iccm 5 again where is industry where is you know if we have all on the table then we can build on something bigger and I think sometimes that is missing so my advice would always be to um um look at who all the stakeholders are and try
To really get them all around the table to get their endorsement and leverage and yeah thank you thank you very much marela also I mean leading us with as a good example being here and sharing your experience From zth hc’s perspective Lara one advice to the Secretariat of the
GFC yes maybe I know the consultative process was not very popular nonetheless I think it’s important to reach the next secm with a a a plan that has been consulted upon before you know the meeting and in particular to Target parties or those those those countries where gender is a very sensitive issue
We had some parties who objected to use language on the definition of gender anything that is a nonbinary definition of gender is sensitive in many countries and that can really become a challenge for the adoption of the plan if the language that is used is not in line
With what’s acceptable some countries we which have very different you know legal Frameworks uh than than others so just to pay specific attention to to some countries with sensitivities on on the on the issue thank you thank you very much also for making this very important point and
Pointing to the enormous diversity uh that we observe around the globe of how gender is being understood and seen and how the empowerment of women and girls is understood and seen um so that there’s there’s really no lack of diversity and breads among uh different countries parts of the world but also
Among different stakeholders with that I hope the Secretariat will go away with with uh some good Lessons Learned and uh uh some inspiration um and I also hope that all the stakeholders that we pointed out that we need for this process will indeed engage I have no doubt that the GFC Secretariat will
Reach out to all the stakeholders that have been engaged in these processes not only the GFC but maybe the other processes that we heard of about today uh and um I wish you all the best in those Endeavors and we’re certainly to work with you on this thanks to everybody who contributed particularly
Our three presenters Karen and marela and Lara also the team who set this up gay and Jan and Delina and others uh and um last but not least to all the participants who contributed to this discussion thank you very much hope to see you again soon either online or even
Better in real life thank you very much stay well stay healthy bye-bye