Mainstreaming of Gender Impacts of Climate Change and Disasters in Education Sector

The poor and vulnerable people especially women have very limited flexibility in decision-making and thus weak adaptive capacity to respond to climate change. In this regard, women and girls have fewer opportunities for education and training, less access to information related to the Climate Change Impacts particularly as well as other social services. 

In order to reduce the Climate Change Impacts on women, Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) has developed and launched the Master Plan on Gender and Climate Change 2013-2022 to contribute to the socio-economics development and implementation of gender responsive policies related to climate change. 

This is not a stand-alone strategy but is cross-cutting and has been integrated into the implementation processes of the Cambodia Climate Change Strategic Plan 2014-2023 as well as sectoral Climate Change Strategic Plans of relevant Ministries. Simultaneously, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MOEYS) has developed Climate Change Action Plan for Education including integration of Gender and Climate Change in school curriculums and strengthening capacity of teachers to deliver this curriculum in order to improve climate-resilience among children, parents and local community members.

To increase community resilience through mainstreaming gender into school curriculum and school management in four provinces (Kampong Chhnang, Kampot, Stung Treng and Svay Rieng).

• School curriculum (teaching and learning) in secondary education includes gender impacts of climate and disasters;
• Increased adaptive capacities of women-headed households and girls through testing and promotion of a gender-sensitive climate-smart school model, and interventions to support their participation in sub-national planning and decision-making processes. 

Kampong Chhnang, Kampot, Stung Treng and Svay Rieng Province

• National level: 120 officials of MoWA, MoEYS/DCD and other relevant government officials receive ToT training on mainstreaming Gender impacts of Climate Change and disasters. 
• Sub-national level: 60 officials from PDoWA, Provincial and District Office of Education of Stung Treng, Svay Rieng, Kampot and Kampong Chhnang receive training from national core trainers on how to mainstream Gender impacts of Climate Change and disasters into school curriculum. 
• Community level: at least 1,200 women-headed households and children especially girls will benefit directly from the project.

This project will be one of the gender and climate change mainstreaming projects of MOWA which are planned to be delivered under the Master Plan on Gender and Climate Change. 

In addition, The MoWA’s Master Plan on Gender Climate Change Committee and Sector Climate Change Strategic Plan and Action Plan of MoWA will serve as the overarching framework for the standardized guideline. Stakeholders will be engaged in the process of the guideline formulation. The proposal on Mainstreaming Gender Impacts of Climate Chang and Disaster into education sector being developed by MoWA will be linked to other on-going initiatives. All initiatives are focused on development of the standard guideline and school curriculum for mainstreaming the social impacts of the climate change and disasters in the education sector (for the CCCA).