While changes in the environment affect everyone, they affect men and women differently. Women and girls are more likely to be affected by environmental degradation largely because of their traditional responsibilities such as food producers, collecting water and firewood. Identify and address the needs of women and men, as well as promote the role of women as policy makers, are essential to the success of the policy and programming environment, and as part of economic development that is inclusive, green and resilient to climate change, and contributes to poverty reduction.

It is in this light that the joint UNDP-UNEP Poverty Environment Initiative (PEI) organized a training workshop in collaboration with the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning in Dakar from 8 to 12 June 2015. The objective of the workshop was to build capacity of government officials affiliated with PEI and PEI staff in West Africa countries to mainstream gender, environment and climate change into policy development and budgeting processes. The course was based on the existing modules of UNDP’s Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative (GEPMI) and modules developed for a similar course organized by IPE Africa in collaboration with GEPMI in August 2014 for English-speaking countries.

The 25 participants at the training workshop represented the ministries of finance, economy and/or planning; the environment; and women and/or gender; and UNDP country offices in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. At the end of the workshop, participants developed individual and country plans of action for the implementation of approaches and tools covered in the workshop, and which will be reviewed in the coming months.

UNEP was represented by Damaris Mungai (ROA Gender focal point), Victoria Luque (UNEP PEF Coordinator and gender focal point), and Alex Forbes (PEI Africa). Funding for Damaris and participants from Benin and Ivory Coast was made possible by generous co-financing by the UNEP Gender team.