Guest blog: SAICM Beyond 2020 – Integrating Gender Now !
By Minu Hemmati and Anna Holthaus, MSP Institute
With the year 2020 fast approaching, Strategic
Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) and its stakeholders are
currently developing pathways for the
international management of chemicals and waste, building and re-building
the platform for Beyond 2020. We therefore have a unique window of
opportunity over the coming years to increase attention and achieve results regarding
integrating gender issues.
There
are various gender aspects and women’s issue relevant to chemicals, and
chemicals and waste management (e.g. Hemmati & Bach 2017).
Most of these issues are not receiving the attention they should in order to
ensure the best possible decisions in policy-making and effective
implementation.
Why
Gender and Chemicals ?
1. Gender, as a social category,
is linked to gender-specific norms of behaviour, roles in society as well as
the development of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ identities, which in turn
influence people’s behaviour, including their impact on the environment, their
affectedness by environmental degradation, and their access to and power over
resources.
2. Gender, as a biological category,
shows that women’s and men’s bodies
are affected differently by certain chemicals – exposure, risk, and impacts can
be different between the sexes.
3. Gender analysis
allows to ask questions that help us understand and unpack root causes of
unsustainable behaviour and societies, and hence have a transformational
potential. We need to tap into this potential in order to bring about
sustainable development, justice and peace.
SAICM has an agreed Overarching Policy Strategy (OPS) that sets out the scope, needs, objectives,
financial considerations underlying principles and approaches, and
implementation and review arrangements of SAICM as a platform and process. The
OPS underlines the specific importance of women
as stakeholders and their still evident lack of representation in the
implementation and decision-making processes for the sound management of
chemicals and chemical safety (SAICM 2012).
Yet, specific knowledge on differentiated and
long-term effects of chemicals on women
and men is still lacking and rarely known to delegations and stakeholders. Comprehensive gender analysis of
chemicals and waste management is lacking even more.
How to Integrate Gender in SAICM ?
Gender
Justice is essential to achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals. The
recent report about women
and gender and the SDGs shows how much progress needs to
be made. However, we can build on existing programs and ongoing
work - the women’s and gender movement has learned a lot about gender
mainstreaming, gender justice, and useful strategies and tools. Experiences
close to SAICM include the Gender Action
Plan of the BRS Conventions, and work on other gender and environment issues,
such as climate change (e.g. UNFCCC, GenderCC), biodiversity
(e.g. UNCBD), and
environment in general (e.g. UNEP GGEO).
Like in many
other areas, we need to increase research
to obtain sex-disaggregated data,
analyze gender roles and identities and
how they impact our interactions with chemicals and waste along the whole life
cycle.
Our Policy Suggestions
Developing
SAICM Beyond 2020, the process is now, at the 2nd Intersessional,
focusing on discussing the elements of a future platform: vision, policy
principles, objectives & milestones, implementation, and governance. We
have followed previous discussions and prepared suggestions to support fully
integratinggender:
An
overall vision for international chemicals
and waste management should be ambitious and brief – like a short sentence
motto, for example:
Together
for chemicals without harm
, or
Healthy Environment, Healthy Lives for
All
The
vision could be accompanied by a longer sentence of explanation with reference to transformation and (gender) justice,
for example:
To
achieve the precautionary and sound management of chemicals throughout their
life cycle in ways that minimize adverse effects on human health and the
environment, as an essential contribution to transformation towards justice and
sustainable development
Policy principles should
reiterate the gender-related aspects already included in the OPS - but should make
stronger references to including women
in decision-making, gender justice, and
gender responsiveness of policies (building on SDG5 - gender
equality), and references to equal
distribution of benefits from green and sustainable chemistry (also see SDG10 - reducing
inequalities within and among countries).
We
suggest to include reference to women and gender when dealing with implementation and governance,
including issues of capacity building,
financing and decision-making at all levels. It would be important to create a Gender Focal Point in SAICM and develop
a Gender Action Plan for SAICM, and
to mainstream the use of Gender Impact Assessment tools.
National Action Plans should contain a
section about gender-related activities and outcomes of all chemicals, wastes
and agriculture projects, and the National
Action Plan process should systematically
include women and gender experts.
Learning From Other UN processes
Experiences
from other UN processes show that integrating gender in (primarily, and
hitherto) environmental discussions is not easy. “Gender and climate – really? Is atmosphere male or female,
masculine or feminine? – hahaha”! Or: “Let’s not make the climate debate
broader than it needs to be by introducing such exotic social issues like
gender – this will not help making progress but water down the discussion.”
These
were among the responses when women’s groups and gender experts started talking
about gender and climate change, in the 1990’s and then with growing force in
the early 2000s.
On
chemicals, we are further along in some respects. There are more data and
research on women’s and men’s bodies’ reactions to chemicals, exposure
patterns, health risks, and so on. But there isn’t that much work with a
specific gender lens, and there isn’t enough attention to these issues. So the
time is now – developing SAICM Beyond 2020 and integrating gender!
Your support for
a gender-just chemicals future beyond2020!
We
have developed suggestions on how to integrate gender in a SAICM Beyond 2020
decision. It should be included in vision, principles, objectives and
milestones, implementation arrangements and governance. We
are seeking to discuss these suggestions with colleagues from governments, UN
and all stakeholders to discuss our ideas on how to integrate gender in SAICM
Beyond 2020. Let us know what you think (contacts below) – and if you are in
Stockholm for the SAICM meeting, we’re happy to have a coffee!
References
GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice. A global network working on a range
of issues relating to mitigation and adaptation.
Hemmati, M. & Holthaus, A. 2018. Gender & Chemicals Beyond 2020. Policy
Suggestions – How to Integrate Gender in SAICM Beyond 2020. Berlin: MSP Institute
Hemmati, M. & Bach, A. 2017. Gender & Chemicals: Questions, Issues, and
Possible Entry Points. Berlin: MSP Institute
UN Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm
(BRS) Conventions: Gender Action Plan (integrating gender, gender pioneer
awards, etc).
UN Convention on Biological Diversity
(UNCBD): Gender and Biodiversity (Gender Plan of Action, Gender
Mainstreaming, etc).
UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC): Gender and Climate Change (intergovernmental process, events,
Gender Action Plan).
UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) 2012.
Overarching Policy Strategy.
UN Women 2018: Turning Promises
Into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York
Contacts
Dr
Minu Hemmati, project lead, Associate, MSP Institute – minu.hemmati(at)msp-institute.org
Anna
Holthaus, project coordinator, MSP Institute –anna.holthaus(at)msp-institute.org
Follow us on twitter – @GenderChemicals
and @byMSPInstitute
About MSP Institute: MSP
Institute is passionate about high-quality multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs)
for sustainable development. Meaningful participation, open dialogue and
effective collaboration involving all sectors of societies will play a key role
in achieving transformation towards sustainable development. Gender equality
and high-quality engagement processes are important goals in themselves but
they are also pre-requisites for just and peaceful societal transformation.
MSP
Institute is an international charitable association based in Berlin, Germany,
est. March 2016.
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