DEVELOPING countries are yet to integrate the Lima Work Programme and Plan on Gender (LWPG) into policies, a top coordinator has declared.

Christina Mndeme, the Vice President’s Office (VPO) deputy permanent secretary for Environment, said this at a stakeholders' consultative meeting on the draft national gender and climate change action plan in Dodoma yesterday.

She said that the Lima framework covers policies, strategies and plans to facilitate data collection to enable the implementation of policies for gender equality and empowerment of women in international negotiations while mainstreaming gender issues into national programmes.

Urging stakeholders to prioritize clean cooking energy in the envisaged draft policy covering gender and climate change action plan, she said the energy shift need is tied to the fact that women spend a lot of time searching for firewood for cooking instead of engaging in income-generating activities.

It is important to incorporate plans to involve clean energy in gender issues, she emphasised, noting that economic activities affected by climate change have implications for the daily lives of women, children and the elderly in particular.

Various factors including gender roles, culture, age, economy, customs and traditions contribute to the vulnerability of social groups when impacts of climate change add to difficulties of maintaining households or improving incomes.

The clean cooking energy plan is a significant step in promoting gender issues, she said, highlighting the fact that Tanzania is a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. 

The Paris Accord calls on member countries to implement the Lima Programme on gender and climate change, she said, stressing that the purpose of the LWPG is to seek member countries of the convention to integrate gender issues into national action plans to implement the convention and the Paris Agreement.

VPO, as the focal point office for the climate change convention locally coordinates preparations of the relevant action plan, has conducted assessments showing that the government has already integrated gender and climate change issues into the National Environmental Policy (2021), the Comprehensive Environmental Plan (2022-2032), the National Climate Change Strategy (2021-2026), and the National Contribution to Climate Change Adaptation (2021-2026).

Preparing the National Gender and Climate Change Action Plan reaffirms government efforts to address climate change for all social groups to achieve sustainable development in the country, she added.