Gender Aspects of Climate Change and Sustainable Development

The world has experienced rapid resource development threatening community livelihoods and human capital assets, particularly those of women. This research explores the linkage between disruptive industries like extractives and lack of sustainable livelihood options for women, which at the present scenario, is not only causing productivity losses in extractive enterprises but also jeopardizing regional sustainability in resource locations. Research findings presented in this chapter show that stakeholders are increasingly being tasked with social responsibilities to forge sustainable livelihoods and enhance the human capital of communities, particularly of women. However, they do not know how to respond to emerging sustainability challenges. The chapter proposes a strategic women-centric approach to sustainability to help stakeholders integrate women’s livelihoods and human capital assets into the extractive industry or other economic sectors relevant for the local economy. This approach has the potential to foster overall sustainability, particularly in the context of developing resource regions. This piece is based on a qualitative research technique for data analysis and case study research methodology.

The individual and organizational potentials for sustainable community development can be maximized through the local government units’ (LGUs) capacity building engagements for knowledge creation. Women contribute significantly to such a knowledge creation process. In this process, the meaning of capacity building for a sustainable learning community gets created in interaction between the women administrators and the community. However, women’s participation and leadership potential are often overlooked. This chapter contributes to the documentation of women as able community leaders in building capability for knowledge creation. Moreover, the results of this study can be used to expand the discourse for building a sustainable learning community through capacity building.

The main challenge facing companies in the development of their sustainability reports is the incorporation of a sustainable approach that promotes both corporate and social sustainability. Scientific research in the Colombian case has shown that the extractive industry must invest in six forms of women’s human capital in the regions where natural resource exploitation takes place, namely: education, innovation, employment, entrepreneurship, leadership, and sustainability. These three components are part of the so-called “Framework for Sustainable Human Capital Development” TM. Existing sustainability reports and corporate social responsibility agendas in regions where natural resources are exploited rarely incorporate these components simultaneously, or there is a lack of proper implementation in contexts such as the Colombian one. This report provides a practical application of these six components in light of the sustainability reports of extractive companies operating in Colombia. The report presents preliminary findings from scientific research aimed at exploring the application of the “Human Capital Development Framework” TM in the Colombian context.

In a background where natural hazards are alarmingly reported around the globe, a question has arisen on the effectiveness of the conventional methods of disaster mitigation. As a result, the experts in Disaster Risk Reduction have identified Nature-Based Solutions as a more productive way to minimize the disaster impacts. The Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction, which is an approach within the Nature-Based Solutions, uses the ecosystem services for mitigating the disaster risk. As a highly impacted group, women are faced with a greater vulnerability due to natural hazards, and their victimized status has empowered them eventually to engage in processes related to Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction. This review studies deeply on the concept of Nature-Based Solutions and investigates on how women have contributed towards disaster mitigation especially under the approach of Nature-Based Solutions and Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction.

The participation of women in the development of people has been and is essential despite the fact that, due to their vulnerability and importance, they have not been considered in their real dimension by the social policies adopted in Latin America and particularly in Peru. This situation has been reflected in special circumstances in the poorest women in our country, that is, rural or peasant women, who have a dynamic of truly associative cultural interaction. Despite this structural situation, cases such as the “Entrepreneurial Women of the Rural Community of Michiquillay” open a door to social inclusion from the self-generation of new goals, values, and identities for rural women, based on perseverance and to take advantage of current economic opportunities. We can say that in our country the dimension of change applied from women, by women, and for women is possible considering the self-knowledge of their cultural and social identity and definition of development for themselves, their families, and their locality.

Gender inequality and sustainable development are two major problems in most developing and underdeveloped countries. Nominal changes were witnessed after adopting “The Beijing Declaration” by 189 governments in 1995. In 2015, around 193 countries committed to 17 SDGs, but the progress toward gender equality was not that rapid. There is a lot to be done on this front. Gender equality is a human right, not just an ideology. How can a country or a society develop socially, economically, or politically when most of its population is disparaged? Sustainable development Goal 5 states that “Empowering women and promoting gender equality is crucial to accelerating sustainable development”. Historically, women were instrumental in changing history; for example, Virginia Woolf fought for working-class women and raised her voice against gender inequality, and Indira Gandhi, who is also known as the Iron lady of India, made her mark in the major political and economic decisions which had changed the course of India’s development. The current chapter elucidates the importance of social development and how gender inequality can be curtailed by involving women in policymaking with some examples.

This chapter analyses the economic empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs, exploring its main determinants, in a rural area of Piura, in Peru. After a brief literature review, the chapter adopts a methodological approach to measure the economic empowerment based on scores, to then group the score values in two: high vs. low economic empowerment. A detailed description of the interviewed rural women highlights the key features of their social, economic, and managerial characteristics and problems. A logit model is estimated and the results identify that the number of children is negatively related to the economic empowerment, while education, age, and length of the marital relation are positively related to the economic empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs. Some policy inferences are explored.

Youth unemployment continues to impede Africa from achieving the 2030 Agenda's sustainable development goal. According to the ILO's 2019 World Employment and social outlook, trends for Youth report, Africa has the most significant proportion of unemployed youth worldwide.

Although 10–12 million young people enter the labour force across the continent each year, only three million jobs are generated. As a result, approximately 8 out of every 10 African youths entering the labour force face the prospect of long-term unemployment.

This chapter argues that addressing youth unemployment in Africa and achieving SDG 8 depends on countries investing in gender equality (SDG 4) because there are many interconnected factors that make female youth more likely to be unemployed.

The chapter uses Afrobarometer survey data of 36 African countries to demonstrate why leveraging gender equality (SDG 4) is critical for accomplishing SDG goal 8.6 (reducing youth unemployment) throughout the action decade.

The current solutions to our growing environmental and global labour problems tend to favour economic growth as a means of enhancing social well-being and thus tend to cater to corporate interests without addressing the fundamental drivers of fossil fuel use and labour exploitation. Within the fashion industry, for instance, the so-called eco-friendly solutions have delivered new products that ultimately worsen the conditions of workers and fail to address the core issues relating to sustainable production. To this end, social and climate justice organisations are playing a crucial role in building alliances between labour and ecological movements and in developing systemic solutions to the current growth-centred economic and ecological models. This chapter examines the inconsistencies in the current policies for promoting sustainable development, and highlights the vital role that labour unions, civil campaigns, NGOs, and environmental groups are playing in unveiling the social injustices within the fashion industry and the unsustainable practices that drive its endless growth. These activist-led campaigns have made significant achievements in increasing the transparency of the supply chains and workplace practices of the textile, apparel, and footwear industries. However, further collective action is needed to force the industry to implement living wages, improve labour conditions, increase gender equality, and implement environmentally sustainable production processes. This is especially the case for women, who account for about 80% of the workforce in the garment, textile, and footwear sectors, are the most underpaid workers in the industry, and are likely to bear much of the brunt of the effects of climate change (ILO. Moving the needle: gender equality and decent work in Asia’s garment sector. International Labour Organization, https://​www.​ilo.​org/​wcmsp5/​groups/​public/​%2D%2D-asia/​%2D%2D-ro-bangkok/​documents/​publication/​wcms_​789822.​pdf, 2021). Thus, women in these industries need to be supported as drivers of collective action and social change.

There is still gender disparity when it comes to facing impacts from a lack of water security, where women from rural areas can be disadvantaged. In the rural areas of Nepal, women are responsible for the collection and management of water, for household chores and agricultural activities. They also have to often venture far and for hours at a time each day to collect water, due to lack of water availability.

This research focuses on water security issues and its implication to women in the selected indigenous communities from the buffer zones of Banke National Park and Shuklaphanta National Park of Nepal. Through literature review and focused group discussions, this research aims to showcase current scenario of water availability, challenges associated with it and the intricate connection of women and water security. The study sheds light on the fact that women face hardship owing to lack of water availability, which in turn has implications on their daily lives and social relationships.