This report was prepared following a call from OECD Member countries during the 2019 Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) to integrate gender mainstreaming into all policy areas of the OECD. The OECD subsequently launched a “Gender Policy Platform: Accelerating Mainstreaming through the Sustainable Development Goals” with a particular focus on areas where the OECD had yet to apply a gender lens, environment being one of these policy areas. The work was financed through a Central Priorities Fund allocation and Voluntary Contributions.
The report provides an overview of the gender-environment nexus, looking into data and evidence gaps, economic and well-being benefits as well as governance and justice aspects. The analysis is conducted using the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Framework. Nine environment-related SDGs are examined under a gender-environment lens, covering topics such as sustainable agriculture and fisheries, biodiversity protection, ecosystem management, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, sustainable infrastructure and inclusive cities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action. This mapping exercise aims at building the evidence and help countries identify possible future work on gender mainstreaming in environmental policies.
The report benefited from comments from the following OECD Committees and Working Parties for information and comments: Environment Policy Committee (EPOC), Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy (CSSP), Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC), Health Committee (HEA), Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC), Public Governance Committee’s Working Party on Gender Mainstreaming and Governance, and Investment Committee’s Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct.
The report was prepared under the supervision of Sigita Strumskyte, Head of the Sustainable Development, Gender and Partnerships Team in the Environment Directorate, and under the guidance of Rodolfo Lacy, OECD Environment Director. The first version of the report was drafted by Sigita Strumskyte in close collaboration with Romina Boarini, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE). Dimitra Xynou, Policy Analyst, researched and drafted subsequent parts of the report, with contributions from Addie Erwin, Alina Manrique de Lara and Sara Ramos Magaña, members of the Environment Directorate’s Sustainable Development, Gender and Partnerships Team. Valuable comments were provided by Shardul Agrawala, Simon Buckle, Bob Diderich, Nathalie Girouard and Kumi Kitamori of the Environment Directorate. Special thanks go to Naoko Kawaguchi (SGE) and Céline Folsché (LEG) for their insights. Enrico Botta, Amy Cano Prentice, Justine Garrett, Alexander Mackie, Miguel Rodriguez Cardenas, and Cecilia Tam (ENV), Stina Heikkilä, Stefano Marta and Debra Mountford (CFE), Michelle Harding, Hannah Simon and Kurt Van Dender (CTP), Rena Hinoshita, Shivani Kannabhiran, Jennifer Schappert and Cristina Tebar Less (DAF), Juan Casado Asensio and Jenny Hedman (DCD), Pierre de Boisséson, Gaelle Ferrant and Alejandra Maria Meneses (DEV), Caitryn Guthrie (EDU), Willem Adema, Michele Cecchini and Shunta Takino (ELS), Cayenne Chachati, Juliane Jansen, Edwin Lau, Carina Lindberg, Scherie Nicol, Guven Pinar, Ana Maria Ruiz Rivadeneira, Toni Rumpf, Tatyana Teplova, Yola Thuerer and Laura Völker (GOV), Graham Pilgrim (SDD), Kelsey Burns (STI), Claire Delpeuch, Guillaume Gruère and Jane Korinek (TAD), Carlotta Balestra, Guillaume Cohen, Grainne Dirwan, Lara Fleischer and Michal Shinwell (WISE), Liliana Suchodolska (Paris 21), Mechthild Wörsdörfer, Sara Moarif and Amrita Dasgupta (IEA), Magdalena Olczak and Wei-Shieun Ng (ITF), as well as other OECD colleagues, contributed with comments and suggestions which are gratefully acknowledged.
Amy Plantin provided valuable guidance on aligning the report with the work of EPOC. Elizabeth Corbett, Carole Guerrier, Dominique Haleva, Annette Hardcastle, Deborah Holmes Michel, Ines Reale, Anna Rourke of the OECD Environment Directorate provided administrative support and formatted the report. Marie-Claude Gauhier and Ricardo Sanchez Torres helped administratively to prepare previous versions of the report. The report benefited from editing by Amelia Smith. Elizabeth Del Bourgo and Stéphanie Simonin-Edwards provided communications and publication production support.
The authors would like to thank the Environmental Policy Committee (EPOC) Delegates and other OECD Committees and Working Parties for useful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the report.