KINGSTON, Jamaica– Jamaica has launched a gender and climate change strategy and action plan (GCCSAP) that it says has been developed and guided by a national gender and climate change assessment, which provided an overview of the policy and institutional contexts for gender-responsive climate action.
The assessment also facilitated an analysis of Jamaica’s practical gender and climate change linkages and recommendations for action.
One aspect of the GCCSAP, titled ‘Build Institutional Capacity for Mainstreaming Gender in Climate Finance Programming, is financed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and was developed with support from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Matthew Samuda, said the plan is designed to lay the groundwork for mainstreaming gender and climate considerations into projects and policies as a means of effective disaster risk reduction and strategic development planning.
“In the face of increasing climate change impacts, such as hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding, drought, and heat waves, the most vulnerable among us, particularly those in [the] lower socio-economic strata, are being increasingly affected.
“The government and its partners must take concrete steps on behalf of the vulnerable groups among us and incorporate gender into project planning cycles,” Samuda said during the project launch last weekend.
Samuda said the government had taken steps at varying levels to implement policies to address issues relating to vulnerable groups.
“We established the climate change focal point network across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, which is charged with prioritizing, executing, monitoring, and reporting on gender-responsive climate action. We have also established gender focal points, and work is ongoing to ensure that we continue working collaboratively with these groups,” he said.
Samuda said that at the national level, Vision 2030 Jamaica, the Climate Change Policy Framework of Jamaica, and the National Policy for Gender Equality articulate the need for gender equitable and climate-conscious development.
He said the strategy and action plan would build on the solid foundation and evaluate gender responsiveness for successful, effective implementation of these and future policies, procedures, and programs.
“We know climate change is real; the impacts unfold before our eyes; we also know that it affects all of us. Critically, it affects different sectors of the society in different ways and to varying degrees; often, it’s the poor who are most adversely affected,” he said while welcoming the strategy and action plan’s development.
Principal Director, Bureau of Gender Affairs, Sharon Coburn-Robinson, said that the new policy would redound to the benefit of all parties concerned.
“Now that we have the strategy, we will be able to do exactly what we had set out to do from the very inception when we spoke about how we can merge gender and climate change and have a successful nexus,” she said.
Regional Manager for the GCF’s Caribbean Country Division Program, Orville Grey, said that since its engagement with the GCF, Jamaica has demonstrated its commitment to ensuring that no sector or group is left behind in adapting to or mitigating the effects of climate change.
“Jamaica continues to demonstrate a strong commitment, not only at the national level but at the regional level, channeling some of its readiness allocations in previous years to support various regional multicultural proposals targeting civil society organizations, the private sector and strengthening regional agencies with a strong component in addressing gender integration in climate change,” he said.
and then 
