For International Women’s Day 2025, the SCALA programme sat down with Sibyl Nelson, the Lead Programme Advisor for the Scaling up Climate Ambition on Land Use and Agriculture (SCALA) programme. She coordinates global implementation while also serving as the Gender Focal Point. She has worked on gender and climate change for over fifteen years.
To start, what sparked your passion for advancing gender equality in agriculture and climate action, and how has your journey led you to this work?
During my graduate studies on climate science and policy, I took a course on rural development. I started to wonder what rural men and women would say about the solutions to climate change we were discussing in my urban classroom, and realized I wanted to be part of bringing those worlds closer together. I had the chance to spend time in Ethiopia with an NGO learning more about gender issues and, later, I worked in India with FAO and saw first-hand how agricultural households were confronting climate change. My supervisor was Yianna Lambrou, an FAO officer who was one of the first people in the world to publish on gender and climate change; she instilled in me that we have the responsibility, through our work, to be the spokespeople for rural men and women, to bring to the forefront their needs, challenges and priorities. I have pursued that ever since in research, capacity development and policy support. And now as the coordinator of implementation and gender focal point for the Scaling up Climate Action in Land Use and Agriculture (SCALA) programme, which FAO jointly leads with UNDP, I am able to support 12 countries to promote gender equality and social inclusion in agrifood systems, particularly through implementing nationally determined contributions (NDCs), national adaptation plans (NAPs), and other climate plans.
Can you tell us more about how the SCALA programme contributes to gender-responsive action?
SCALA is one of FAO and UNDP’s flagship initiatives promoting planning and implementation of gender-transformative and participatory climate action, in line with FAO’s Strategy on Climate Change and its Policy on Gender Equality and UNDP’s Climate Promise and its Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. All SCALA country work begins with screening climate actions for implementation; those with the potential to bolster gender equality and social inclusion become our top priorities. We conduct gender and social analyses with national partners, carry out inclusive consultative approaches, integrate gender-responsive and socially inclusive priorities into plans and budgets, and support the design of gender-responsive funding proposals. Through our continued engagement in global dialogues, we are able to foster knowledge sharing to encourage a multiplication of gender-responsive action.
In light of this year’s International Women’s Day theme, “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”, how does SCALA ensure that gender-responsive approaches translate into tangible empowerment for women in agriculture and land use?
SCALA is working to provide the data and information needed to understand gender issues in agriculture and address systemic barriers to equality. So far, we have completed nine gender analyses for climate decision-making. In Colombia, we have documented the adaptation practices of Indigenous Peoples and other rural communities and supported the active participation of women leaders in local climate planning. Another way we are contributing on the theme of empowerment is by encouraging a new generation of gender champions in climate action by developing tailored-made guides and workshops that are contributing to governments’ abilities to plan gender-responsive climate action. Our colleagues in Nepal and Uganda have been busy in this area, targeting government planning processes at national and local levels.
Working in countries stretching across global regions, what would you say are some of SCALA’s major achievements in terms of supporting gender-transformative approaches in agriculture?
One of the major contributions of SCALA to date is the documentation of gender issues in areas where there was little-to-no information and the translation of the insights on gender issues into actionable policy recommendations that are being taken up by governments. In Egypt, the impacts of climate change on women in the livestock and dairy sub-sectors has been studied and related adaptation actions to enhance the resilience of the sub-sectors are being taken forward in the country’s NAP formulation process. The Costa Rica team conducted an in-depth gender analysis to identify the gaps that hinder women’s full participation in livestock production; based on this, they designed a roadmap to close those gaps, which is being utilized in the monitoring of the livestock sector climate plan. In Côte d’Ivoire, SCALA developed tender-sensitive guidelines to help government stakeholders integrate climate goals into planning and budgeting specifically for the cashew and cassava value chains.
Outside of SCALA, recent work on gender and climate change in agriculture helps us to see the role of discriminatory social institutions in influencing climate resilience, as well as which barriers vulnerable and resource-constrained farm households are facing. In other words, we have growing evidence that the institutions shaping our response to climate change can perpetuate inequality between men and women. But let’s look at the plus side – these institutions also have huge potential to put measures into place that empower and improve equality.
Through SCALA we are asking: what measures can we help put into place so the response to climate change not only benefits men and women, but contributes to their empowerment? It is not enough to target women and men; we are no longer just considering different needs or aiming to deliver benefits. We are seeking transformation of systems where women’s decision-making power over climate actions is enhanced and, ultimately, the underlying causes of gender inequality are overcome.
With SCALA now extended for another three years until 2028, what more do you hope to achieve in this new phase?
2025 is a critical year for countries to enhance their NDCs and NAPs. SCALA will be working side-by-side with governments, providing inputs in the form of data and capacity building to ensure that more climate plans incorporate concrete programmes and targets on enhancing women’s decision-making power and transforming the causes of inequality.
We will also continue our efforts at national level; for example, SCALA Mongolia will be bringing together stakeholders from finance, planning, agriculture, environment and other sector ministries to mainstream gender-responsive climate planning and budgeting into national frameworks. In addition, we are focused on catalysing additional finance for climate solutions that are built on the principle of gender equality. In Uganda, we will be funding pilots of gender-responsive climate solutions for the dairy and cassava value chains to drive additional private sector investment.
Ultimately, we are very proud and grateful to have the continued support of Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and International Climate Initiative (IKI) to build on the achievements of the first phase of SCALA and take our efforts to a whole new level.
International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8 March.
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