Vision,
Approach
& Goals

Vision and Mission

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)states that biodiversity and nature’s capacity to contribute to people are being degraded, reduced and lost due to a number of common pressures – habitat stress; overexploitation and unsustainable use of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; increasing numbers and impact of invasive alien species and climate change, among others.

Climate change and environmental degradation are also impacting diverse individuals in differentiated fashion, depending not only on their geographical location, but due to age, ethnicity, sociocultural and economic factors and gender, among other factors (IPCC, 2014).

Women4Biodiversity (W4B) network advocates for a right to a healthy environment for all. We believe that Living in Harmony with Nature needs to take into account the roles and contributions of women and girls to achieve transformative change. This requires addressing gender equity and women’s empowerment and recognizing women’s institutions and their agencies as a way to achieve environment benefits and gender justice. The networks seeks to build synergies around the work of the three Rio Conventions – Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other international multi-lateral environmental agreements to provide direction for more coherent and inclusive processes while ensuring their proper implementation.

Approach

W4B supports and advances diversity in all its programs, including in its leaderships, partnerships and policy advocacy. We believe in addressing the environmental challenges requires narrowing the gender gaps in at all levels of engagement – from the local to the global and advocates in recognizing women’s human rights to address gender inequality and strives to provide gender-responsive approaches to the right to a healthy environment and securing it for the future generations for a just and transformative sustainable development and environmental security.

Goals

• Bring in diverse voices of women, including their experiences, knowledge, innovations and practices together to build a platform of collective actions.
• Advancing women’s empowerment through skills share to equip them with expertise to assert their rights as decision-makers, advocates and leaders, in particular to issues related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, as well as sustainable development. 
• Environmental policies, plans and practices are gender-responsive, environmentally, socially and culturally just and implemented effectively at all levels of engagement.
• Provide environmental scientists and policy makers with a broad overview of gender-responsive considerations and identify gaps and ways forward in building synergies and the benefits of addressing the global environmental conventions simultaneously.women