BONN, GERMANY (March 10, 2014)— Today, WEDO’s Andrea Quesada delivered an intervention at the opening plenary of the ADP at the UNFCCC. See below:

Thank you co chairs for this opportunity to contribute with our views. My name in Andrea Quesada focal point of the Women and Gender Constituency, speaking on behalf of WEDO.

We would like recall the words of Vice-President of the Dominican Republic Dra. Margarita Cedeño de Fernández on the occasion of International Women’s Day highlighting that women and young women are taking action to combat poverty and to address climate change though local adaptation projects and creating sustainable enterprises in their communities.

Building on the vice president’s call, ADP should integrate ongoing progresses to ensure gender equality is addressed under the Convention. ADP should propose concrete ways to address socio-economic issues, such as gender equality and women’s human rights, as these are pre-requisites of sustainable development and enablers of effective actions to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Green Climate Fund for example is in process of articulating a fund-wide gender-sensitive approach, which should be considered by the ADP.

We echo calls from Parties and observers for real actions and commitments included in a fair and legally binding agreement that is ambitious, that takes into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and that considers mitigation and adaptation solutions.

Particularly, in the context of this meeting, we urge Parties to broaden the current scope of discussions under the ADP to include bottom-up approaches, of proven small-scale initiatives that also benefit people and communities, respect rights, reduce current and future emissions and achieve sustainable development.  We further request that all actions under the ADP include strong gender-sensitive social and environmental safeguards that will make this agreement stronger and more sustainable.

Thank you