Daily Times

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN Pakistan) has launched the Climate Change Gender Action Plan in Gilgit Baltistan as part of its commitment to build gender responsive readiness, capacities and innovative approaches amid rising impacts of global warming and environmental degradation in the region.

The IUCN Pakistan has launched its Climate Change Gender Action Plans (ccGAPs) to strengthen the resilience of women and girls in the face of climate-related impacts, while aiming to accelerate progress and support gender-responsive climate action plan with new commitments and initiatives, an IUCN official news release said.

The launch ceremony was held at the Chief Secretary’s office; while the guests included senior government officials, members of civil society, local community based organizations, academia and media.

The event opened with welcome remarks from Country Representative, IUCN Pakistan Mahmood Akhtar Cheema who provided an overview of IUCN Pakistan’s work in Gilgit Baltistan and its key role in introduction of sustainable trophy hunting initiative which was still continued by the local communities and the wild life department.

The Gilgit Baltistan’s conservation strategy and the State of Environment Report was also developed by IUCN in Past and it was currently involved in a major biodiversity related initiative under which over 10,000 youth were involved in research and field activities.

Programme Coordinator, IUCN Pakistan, Fauzia Bilqis Malik during her presentation apprised the audience that “the ccGAPs is developed around the six priority sectors including; agriculture and food security, forest and biodiversity, disaster risk reduction, water and sanitation, integrated coastal management and mitigation: energy and transport.”

Primarily a multi-stakeholder, cross-sector capacity building process was led by Ministry of Climate Change and IUCN to develop national capacities and focal groups and a cross-sector national action plan, fostering innovative project design to strengthen national and provincial climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience through gender-responsive strategies and activities, she added”. She also mentioned that the action plan will further lead towards a gender-responsive project pipeline of Pakistan.

The presentation was followed by a Questions and Answers session which was facilitated by Head of Climate Change Programme, IUCN Pakistan, Dr Ghulam Rasul.

Speaking on the occasion, Additional Chief Secretary and Secretary Planning and Development Department, Government of Gilgit Baltistan, Aziz Ahmed Jamali said, “This is a great achievement of IUCN and Government of Pakistan in multiple ways, particularly because it is the first ever Climate Change Gender Action Plan of Pakistan lead by Ministry of Climate Change and also because it is the first such initiative by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to ensure gender mainstreaming in the upcoming GCF funded projects”.