GENDER AND DESERTIFICATION. CONCEPTUAL AND PROGRAMATIC LINKS

Abstract

Three conventions emerged from the Earth Summit of 1992 in order to counteract the world environmental crisis: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. This paper focuses on this latter, with the purpose of building links between desertification and gender. Firstly, both terms are defined in order to establish conceptual links between them. Various documents on gender equality of the United Nations are also discussed in order to analyze the efforts to mainstream gender into the Convention to Combat Desertification. It is concluded that this is the most advanced of the three, although a transition from lip service to concrete actions remains to be seen.

Keywords

• land degradation
• gender equality
• environmental policy
• UN
• conventions