The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the United Nations reproductive health and rights agency that contributes to the expansion of possibilities for women and young people to lead healthy and productive lives. It is the lead United Nations agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. Climate change impacts sexual and reproductive health and the ability to realize fundamental human rights. Realizing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) would mean reductions in inequality and increases in resilience and help ensure no one is left behind as climate impacts intensify. UNFPA is committed to achieving its three transformative results (ending preventable maternal mortality, ending unmet need for family planning, and ending gender-based violence and harmful practices with HIV considered the additional result in ESA region) by limiting the impact of climate change on women, girls, young people and other vulnerable groups through its work on gender adaptation including Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and HIV; climate vulnerability assessments; systems strengthening; and building individual and community resilience, is deepening its work on gender-transformative and gender-responsive adaptation action. To deep our work across country offices, UNFPA ESARO is looking to carry out a series on deeper research on climate change and various layers of SRHR including maternal health, GBV, child marriage and FGM. These studies aim to contribute to strengthening the country-driven process to present more evidence at the national and subnational level on the linkages between climate change, SRHR and GBV, and analyze gendered impacts of climate change at the individual, community and systems level as well as during emergency responses. They will also provide a narrative on adaptive capacity to improve understanding of impacts of climate change on women and girls at the local level and available capacity for transformation. Findings of this study will be used to inform policy makers and practitioners on the linkage between climate change, SRHR, GBV and other related intersections at the national , regional and global level. The study will also provide evidence-based information on active local actors, innovative initiatives and implications of climate change on local communities and how it can translate into possible interventions carried out with the support of UNFPA and other key partners. Below are examples of key intersections that some of the research will focus on:
- What are evidences of the impact of climate change or enviromental change on SRHR including GBV, Child Marriage and FGM at country, regional or global level? Major climate events in the region include cyclones, drought, water scarcity, intense rain, sea level rise, flooding and typhoons;
- What are the impacts of climate change on HIV infections & mother to child transmissions of HIV?
- What are the impacts of climate change on maternal health including nutritional/food security?
- What are the impact of climate change on adolescent health?Conduct a case studies on how climate change impacts women and girls in specific country hotspots;
- What are the programmatic and policy options that can help reduce the climate-induced risk of GBV, CM, FGM and HIV and promote the resilience and adaptability of women and girls?
- What are the interventions, services, and information available to support women and girls in preventing the risk of GBV, child marriage, HIV and female genital mutilation in the context of climate change? - What could be the role of early warning and protection systems in this context? - What knowledge and capacities are available to local communities to employ strategies to buffer shocks and adapt to climate change to prevent GBV, child marriage, HIV and female genital mutilation? - What is the role of local institutions, power relations between men and women in decision making and policies?;
- What are the programmatic recommendations and policy options that could be integrated in the national adaptation response that strengthen resilience to climate change of women and girls?
- How to strengthen health system resilience to climate change?
For this purpose, we are looking at opening this call to receive submissions from experts on SRHR and climate and gender that will constitute our pool of experts for research on these intersections within the region. This will then serve as the database for current and future recruitments based on identified expertise. |