Spotlight on Gender in NDCs: a global assessment

2020 was meant to be a big year in the climate policy world. Five years on from the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries were up to the task of revising or updating their first-round of national climate commitments—their so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). These commitments, and processes to implement these commitments now deemed the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), were under strict scrutiny the last 18 months to ensure updates met the need in ambition and technical capacity to scale the climate-just results needed. Gender equality is no exception to this, as the preamble to the Paris Agreement includes specific language to ensure women’s empowerment and gender equality as a critical component to addressing the climate crisis. With this in mind, we supported the Women’s Environment and Development Organization in a global review and assessment on the processes and progress integrating and applying a gender-responsive approach in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The seminal spotlight report on Gender and NDCs reveals 51 countries have evidence of actively engaging to enhance and respond to gender dynamics within their national climate change frameworks and processes; 44 countries demonstrate evidence of nascent and/or moderate engagement to integrate gender in climate and NDC processes; and the remaining 101 countries were found to have limited or no publicly available evidence of their engagement in gender and climate processes regardless of commitments made.

The spotlight report was followed by partner research highlighting the inclusion of commitments in newly-revised NDCs submitted prior to 2021, with ongoing advocacy efforts to advance the considerations and integration of gender-just climate planning and implementation in the NDCs.