indonesian cities are increasingly invested in efforts to build urban resilience, and finding means of resisting, absorbing and recovering from climate change hazards. Despite growing evidence that women, especially in underserved populations, suffer disproportionately from climate change hazards, there are inadequate data and methods for taking adequate account of women’s perspectives in city-level resiliency initiatives. The indonesian civil society organisation Kota Kita conducted a study to examine its methodology for undertaking Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments (CCVAs). it focused on how its CCVA process could better assess women’s climate vulnerability for urban planning efforts, the importance of using a gender lens for resiliency planning, and observed several key gender-focused resiliency efforts in indonesia.
The study found that women’s perspectives were lacking in city-level resilience planning because few women participate in CCVAs. it also found that any data obtained had limitations in terms of its credibility, availability and accessibility, and that institutional capacity for using it was also limited. finally, it found that
gender and resilience development trends could actually reinforce gender discrimination rather than alleviate it.
Policy pointers
- Better city provision of public services can decrease poorer communities’ reliance on threatened ecosystem services and improve environmental issues like river pollution. This creates a positive feedback loop of reduced poverty, climate change mitigation, and environmental sustainability
- Because traditional urban planning is dominated by male perspectives, using a ‘gender lens’ or designing policies through the perspectives of women can illuminate marginalised citizens’ perspectives more generally
- City-level planning does not have effective gender-focused data collection and implementation methods. While climate change hazards affect everyone, municipal responses must be targeted and specific to differences in gendered experiences
- Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments (CCVAs) are increasingly common methods among NGOs and other institutions for obtaining data on how climate change hazards affect men and women differently. These CCVAs are often carried out by local community groups, NGOs, and universities in partnership with local governments who can use the data to build more effective mitigation and adaptation responses