Practitioner Brief 3: Understanding Gender in Community-Based Adaptation

Locally Led Adaptation & Resilience

Gender

Disaster Risk & Humanitarian Action

Gender inequality continues to be one of the most persistent and widespread forms of social inequality across the world. And yet, while its importance is increasingly recognized by policy makers and practitioners working to address climate change, its impact on adapting to climate change is often poorly understood, or simply misunderstood.

Good analysis of local gender dynamics to inform community-based adaptation (CBA) does not have to be a complicated science. This practical brief is not a guide for researchers, nor is it a comprehensive gender analysis tool. Rather, it seeks to unpack why, where and how gender analysis fits into the community-based adaptation process, providing a rational for its importance and pointing to key resources. It seeks to demystify the challenge by breaking the process of “integrating gender” into a set of three key practices, which inform CBA planning and decision making through different ways.

The brief is the third in a series of practitioner briefs which document findings from the Adaptation Learning Program (ALP) on community based adaptation approaches that are useful to practitioners, development actors and decision-makers. This brief will be of particular value for project and program teams, local and national government staff, and civil society practitioners.