Advancing Gender in the Environment

 (AGENT)

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Advancing Gender in the Environment

Get AGENT updates

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Engage with AGENT coordinators for more details

Investigate

About AGENT

AGENT drives transformation toward a more sustainable and equitable future for all.

 

Recognizing women as agents of change, and the value of diverse knowledge, experiences and capacities of women and men alike, AGENT envisions a world that approaches environmental work at all levels with gender-responsive policy and action.

How AGENT Works?

Filling critical information gaps

Addressing knowledge gaps on gender across environmental contexts

Women are vital to conservation and resilience-building efforts, and women’s empowerment is intrinsically linked to achieving sustainable development. Yet, gender inequalities and gaps persist: AGENT works to fill critical knowledge gaps to enable gender-responsive, knowledge-based environmental action.

Making the case for gender integration

Spreading the word on gender and environment linkages

IUCN has unique networking abilities as an Intergovernmental Organization. A membership Union composed of 1,400 members from governments, indigenous organizations and civil society organizations and tapping over 15,000 experts through its commissions, IUCN provides public, private and non-governmental organizations with knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together. AGENT leverages this expansive base, promoting IUCN and USAID thought leadership by advancing knowledge, advocacy and capacity building at all levels.

Tailored technical support

Building capacities for gender equality through expert support

AGENT provides tailored technical support to USAID and IUCN activities with a specialized focus on women’s leadership, women’s economic empowerment and strengthened livelihoods. Technical gender specialists work closely with programs, projects and local stakeholders to develop and apply gender analyses and action plans, for example, and build specific strategies, tools and in-house capacities to address gender gaps and realize gender-responsive results.

An IUCN-USAID partnership​

Advancing Gender in the Environment (AGENT) is  a ten-year collaboration between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GenDev) that was established in 2014. The purpose of the grant is to increase the effectiveness of environment programming through robust gender integration and improve gender equality and women’s empowerment outcomes in a broad range of environmental sectors.

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Why AGENT is important?

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are powerful levers for change.

Women are vital to conservation and resilience-building efforts, and women’s empowerment is intrinsically linked to achieving sustainable development. Yet, gender inequalities and gaps persist: women commonly face obstructed access to markets, capital, training and technologies; they are underrepresented in—if not restricted from—decision-making spheres at all levels. Women in much of the world do not have the same customary or legal rights to land, property and resources that men do, stripping them of critical means for survival and resilience. And while they hold crucial roles and responsibilities in natural resource management, women’s contributions, innovations and leadership are often overlooked. The result is a lost opportunity for environmental initiatives to achieve multiple benefits, amplify results and increase effectiveness, as gender equality and women’s empowerment leads to more successful, efficient and equitable development outcomes.

Current areas of focus

Addressing knowledge gaps, building capacities and delivering technical support on gender integration across environmental contexts.

Gender-Based Violence and Environment Linkages

Through AGENT and with other partners, IUCN strengthens awareness and capacities to address gender-based violence and environment linkages, critical to meeting interlinked global goals.

Gender in Fisheries: A Sea of Opportunities

A part of its AGENT partnership, IUCN works with USAID and other partners in advancing evidence-based approaches to strengthening women’s empowerment, access to finance and sustainable fisheries through a Learning Initiative.

Sustainable and climate resilient landscapes

Climate change is not gender neutral: Under the AGENT partnership, IUCN operationalizes the knowledge it creates, ensuring evidence and experience-based expertise informs and supports gender-responsive environment projects and initiatives towards sustainable and climate resilient landscapes.

Archived AGENT work

Women in African Power (WiAP)

Under its AGENT partnership, IUCN worked closely with Power Africa to incubate a network of over 1,000 members to support, elevate, and connect women with energy sector opportunities.
WiAP

Gender and Renewable Energy (G-REEN)

Through AGENT, IUCN developed a platform for climate mitigation practitioners on sharing best practices and lessons learned in mainstreaming gender in renewable energy projects and policies.

G-REEN

AGENT areas of work

Identifying and filling knowledge gaps, AGENT builds awareness and information on gender and environment issues across topics and sectors.

Gender-responsive national planning

Working with countries and partners on gender and environment links

Addressing gender-based violence

Advancing knowledge and action on risks and challenges

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Encouraging women and girls in STEM fields

Fisheries

Sustainable fisheries strengthened by gender equality and women’s empowerment

Sustainable landscapes

Addressing the business case for gender equality across large-scale activities

Adaptation and resilience

Strengthening adaptive capacities and preparedness to meet global challenges

Energy and infrastructure

Gender equality to power the global energy transition

Forests and restoration

Improved management and inclusive governance through women’s empowerment

Urban planning

Integrating gender considerations across urban services

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Influencing Action

Thought leadership in action.

AGENT’s outreach and advocacy activities have impact. From influencing investments, to new areas of research and to strengthened environmental policy setting, AGENT makes the case for gender integration across environmental sectors and programming. These impacts help advance gender integration throughout sustainable development initiatives, policies, projects, and partnerships — prioritizing a world that values gender-responsive policy and action.

Has the work of this platform inspired your own research, procurement, policy, or project?

Making the case snapshots

Effective advocacy. Policy influence. Tracking change.

 

From influencing gender-responsive environmental policy and procurements, to inspiring new incentive funds, IUCN’s work through AGENT works towards a more sustainable and equitable future for all. Review selected examples of change AGENT has influenced:

Through its two-year research process, IUCN advised and informed the creation of a global challenge on Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Environments (RISE). In its first round of funding, over 170 applications were submitted from 49 countries. With five projects awarded grants, and a second tranche of funding underway, the RISE challenge aims to address GBV in environmental programmes and generate evidence on promising interventions. IUCN extends its influence and expertise by supporting grantees with technical information and support.
Inspired investments: Addressing gender-based violence and environment linkages​
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IUCN's partnership on exploring gender and fisheries connections in Advancing Gender in the Environment: Gender and Fisheries - A Sea of Opportunities found a critical information gap: existing documentation rarely establishes the case for why and how gender integration can improve sustainability. To connect this case with the gender equality goals, USAID has invested in a Learning Initiative on Women's Empowerment, Access to Finance, and Sustainable Fisheries.
Intensified evidence-building: Women's empowerment and sustainable fisheries
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AGENT produced a resource guide providing information and strategies on how to best ensure the inclusion of women and marginalized peoples throughout key commodity sectors, such as palm oil, soy, beef and paper. The guide has reached over 100 decision-makers in commodity companies, governments, and nonprofits and is being used by the Tropical Rainforest Alliance in to inform its jurisdictional work. It is also being used as a model for sharing best practice experiences, resources and policy guidance by USAID, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), UN Women and others.
Bolstered private-public-partnerships: Toward equitable and sustainable landscapes
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Advancing Gender in the Environment: Gender and Fisheries - A Sea of Opportunities has not only supported numerous successful gender-responsive proposals to advance gender and fisheries goals, but is also influencing investment portfolios. The Blue Action Fund, a conservation trust fund dedicated to supporting marine protected areas and coastal waters of Africa, Latin America and Asia, has based a call for a gender mainstreaming guide on the IUCN-USAID guide.
Informed funds: Building gender-responsive fisheries investments
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AGENT provides trusted and reliable talking points for senior IUCN and USAID leadership, highlighting the importance of gender equality and women's empowerment towards equitable, sustainable development goals. These statements help establish the commitment of the partnership towards ensuring environmental decision-making, benefit sharing, and livelihood opportunities take gender-differentiated impacts and prospects into account.
Amplified messaging and thought leadership on gender and environment linkages
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As a part of its technical support work, IUCN provided gender analysis support to the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project that spans El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Developed through inclusive engagement from women in its project sites and experienced guidance from IUCN, the gender analysis has been used as rich contextual input in a US$ 50 million USAID project on protecting biodiversity in Guatemala.
Amplified investments in gender equality: Protecting biodiversity in Guatemala
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Identifying and then taking steps to address gender gaps in environmental decision-making, programming and projects is essential to ensure resilience and well-being for whole communities – not least in the context of a changing climate. In 2019, culminating a multi-year multi-stakeholder process, USAID collaborated with IUCN to support the Government of the Dominican Republic to launch its national Climate Change Gender Action Plan (ccGAP) together with the USAID Dominican Republic Mission. Today, the ccGAP is implemented and supported as a part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
Strengthened national gender-responsive resilience planning in the Dominican Republic
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In 2017, the Peru Climate Change Gender Action Plan was formally adopted by the national government. Facilitated by IUCN under its AGENT partnership with USAID, the Peru ccGAP is influencing the strategies and coordination of the USAID Peru Mission with other development agencies across sectors. The ccGAP has also been included in USAID's Green Infrastructure for Water Security programme which invests $US 15 million to support scaling up green infrastructure to manage water risks in Peru. The ccGAP has also been included in the Amazonic Plan for Climate Change and supported the Ministry of Environment's work on involving women in its measures on Integrated Water Resources Management. The ccGAP also led to the designation of gender focal points in the Ministry of Environment on renewable energy issues.
Robust national action: Addressing gender across Peru's environment sectors
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AGENT research on gender in national energy frameworks and policies is influencing numerous international policy spheres, with findings being incorporated into Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) > A subsequent regional data analysis report on sub-Saharan Africa’s integration of gender equality principles in national energy policies and frameworks is being put to good use, as Power Africa has input the raw data into country profiles to inform potential partnerships and investments about the status of gender equality in a country’s energy sector.
Increased gender integration in gender and renewable energy: Energizing equality
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Advancing Gender in the Environment: Gender and Fisheries - A Sea of Opportunities has led to numerous requests from organizations like the World Bank, PROBLUE, Blue Venture, Ocean Alliance and more. In particular, the guide has informed a Shared Resources, Joint Solutions project in Cambodia, which is piloting a new model for community fisheries development build upon innovative conservation finance, strengthened gender equality, increased food security and improved livelihoods in the freshwater fisheries sectors of the Tonle Sap and Mekong.
Enhanced innovations in gender-responsive project design
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Throughout the life of the partnership to date, AGENT has developed over 100 internal and public white papers, reports, guides, new data packages, briefs, factsheets, webinars, slide packs, curated reading lists, talking points and more. Publicly available tools have been accessed over 49,000 times while internal tools have advised USAID on how gender and environment issues are addressed in gender policy as well as its work to update Regional and Country Development Cooperation Strategies.
Recognized thought leadership on gender and environment issues
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Based on the first white paper of its kind on gender and renewable energy linkages, in 2016, AGENT created the first global initiative addressing gender and mid- to large-scale energy. The resulting Gender and Renewable Energy (G-REEN) network was led by an expert working group of more than 100 leaders who have facilitated next-step and next-trend discourse with over 900 practitioners. G-REEN has been cited by Forbes Magazine as a top resource on gender and renewable energy and tools have informed USAID energy and infrastructure procurements.
Established connections: Gender and renewable energy linkages
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