Women and Green Economy: Engaging with New Dev Bank

By Govind Kelkar and Sudeshna Sengupta
PWESCR is happy to present BRICS Feminist Watch’s position paper, Women and the Green Economy: Engaging with New Development Bank.
The concept of Green Economy has been operationalized for the last 10 years. Politically, the concept became prevalent from the negotiation in Environmental Summit of 1992. Rio 20 became the platform where the idea of Green Economy started growing more prevalent.In a Green Economy, however, the Rights approach to development and gender equality has been missing. Growth in income and employment is to be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Pointing out the Global South concern on conceptualizing Green Economy in a recent webinar hosted by the BRICS Feminist Watch (BFW), Mariama Williams stated that some South feminists were not happy with this agenda as it might shift the focus from sustainable development, especially if the Green Economy only puts price tags on nature and was not concerned about human rights.
Feminists are of the opinion that it is important that Green Economy should engage with political, social and environmental concerns and ensure adequate participation of women and recognize their contributions.
Women are not to be looked at only as target beneficiaries impacted by the transition process to Green Economy. This position paper presents the progressive feminist position on incorporating Green Economy within the policy domain of National Development Bank (NDB).
The paper starts by conventional conceptualizations of Green Economy and then moves to a feminist critique of these conceptualizations.
Section 2 of the paper deals with gender equality or lack of it in BRICS countries followed by the agenda and advocacy by feminists and progressive civil society.
Section 4 of the paper looks at the discourse between Green Economy and Sustainable Development followed by Section 5 which points out absence of women in these debates. Section 6 posits BFW’s overarching concerns on gender equality. The concluding Section 7 puts forward a series of considerations for NDB strategy and practice.
(BRICS Feminist Watch’s position paper, Women and the Green Economy: Engaging with New Development Bank.)
http://www.pwescr.org/WomenandGreenEconomyPositionPaper.pdf