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Case Study 4.2
Gender mainstreaming in the climate change response of Sorsogon City, the Philippines
By Bernhard Barth
Sorsogon City, one of 120 cities of the Philippines, has a land area of 313 sq. kilometres
and a population of 151,454 (as of 2007), growing at a rate of 1.78% annually. In 2000,
women in the city accounted for 49.7% of the population. The 2007 census does not
present sex-disaggregated data. Sorsogon’s economy is based mainly on agriculture,
fishing, trade and services. Sorsogon City, the capital of Sorsogon Province, is the
administrative, commercial, and educational center of the province.
In 2006 two super typhoons caused widespread devastation within a two-month interval,
leaving in its wake a total of 27,101 families affected and 10,070 destroyed houses. The
first typhoon, in just 5 hours, caused damages to public infrastructure estimated at 208
million Pesos or 4.3 Million US dollars. Whilst the city was used to typhoons, the
ferocity and their rapid succession led to the popular perception that this was a sign of
climate change. In August 2008, the mayor launched the city’s climate change initiative,
requesting UN-HABITAT’s technical support.
Until then, the common idea was that whilst climate change affected the city, this was a
global and national issue requiring limited action from the local government. The mayor
initiated a series of briefings for decision-makers and community leaders to enhance the
basic understanding of climate change and the important role of local government. It was
agreed that climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessments as well as a GHGs
emissions inventory would be conducted by the city itself, primarily because funding for
external consultants was not available. The assessment was to provide the city with the
required information upon which a climate change plan could be developed.
Initially the city was particularly keen on getting reliable climate predictions and was
hoping for a detailed localized climate model. However, it became clear that localized
models would only be available by mid-2009 – a date that has been pushed back several
times since then. For the region (Bicol, of which Sorsogon is part) as a whole, it was
projected that more cases of prolonged monsoon rains causing rainfall exceeding 2,800 to
3,500 mm per year were likely and that more extreme weather events were also likely to
occur.
The assessment was based on the national guidelines where vulnerability (in accordance
with the IPCC) is defined as a function of sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity. For
a better understanding of the “sensitivity” it was agreed that local weather and sea level
observations were to supplement the available national and regional (sub-national)
climate change models. It was further agreed that the participatory methodology
developed by the Sustainable Cities Programme was appropriate to triangulate the
background information on climate sensitivity with community observations. The
participatory methodology was the primary entry point to understand local exposure to
weather related hazards and to understand adaptive capacity. Local radio and TV stations,
schools, youth and community groups were happy to be associated with the Programme
and actively participated in raising awareness with regard to climate change impacts and
possible responses.
During consultations, residents recounted how typhoons and storm surges over the last
decade had become stronger and more destructive. These personal accounts were
recorded as evidences of climate change impacts. Using hand-drawn maps, local women
and men graphically described the changes in the reach of tidal flooding and identified
the areas gradually lost due to sea level rise and erosion. This participatory exercise
promoted ownership by the women and men of the community in the assessment process
and results and increased their awareness of climate change impacts. Moreover, the
process empowered the people to work together with the local government in finding
practical solutions that they can personally act on.
At this stage a clear commitment to a participatory approach was prevalent. However, the
understanding of and commitment to gender analysis and gender mainstreaming was less
strong and to some extent imposed by UN-HABITAT. A draft of the vulnerability
assessment states:
[Focus Group Discussions] with communities revealed that in previous disasters
[…], women experienced heavy burdens in that they needed to extend their roles
to cope and recover from the damages in their homes and livelihoods. Women in
Sorsogon City during the past two cyclones and in the context of disaster recovery
expanded their roles to generate additional income to support the family.
Immediately after the cyclone, the women were in the forefront of looking for
resources that could be used to restore or augment their limited and damaged
livelihoods. They tried accessing financial resources support and small business
information and training programs from local micro-finance organizations in the
City […]. Indeed, the women in Sorsogon played an important role in the overall
livelihood and social recovery after the two super typhoons that devastated the
city in late 2006.1
The draft report concludes that in particular women-headed households were vulnerable
to the impacts of climate change and that a climate change response would provide the
city with a “great opportunity [for] mainstreaming equitable and responsive gender
programs”.
A validation workshop, bringing together city and community leaders as well as
representatives from faith-based and other civil society organizations discussed the
findings of the vulnerability assessment. Women were well represented in the workshop
and participated actively. Climate hotspots (flooding, landslides, and storm surge
impacts) were identified and eight Barangay (lowest level of local government) with a
high number of low-income households were identified as potential sites for the climate
change programme. The validation workshop concluded with the request to conduct more
UN-HABITAT (2009): Climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment
report (Prepared by: Ma. Adelaida Mias-Mamonong and Reinero M. Flores)
1
research on the social dimension of climate change vulnerability, to develop robust
criteria for the prioritization of Barangay and to develop propositions for action which
were to be discussed in the city consultation. The revision of the vulnerability assessment
addressed gender concerns in more detail and the criteria for priority setting explicitly
contained gender indicators.
All households in those Barangay which were regarded as housing the most vulnerable
communities participated in the second level assessment. For the first time the city and
the community had detailed information on poverty and social indicators which were
visualized in simple maps.
Key survey questions related to the impacts of climate change on the households – with a
clear identification of the households as female or male-headed. The initial assessment
had clearly indicated that the most vulnerable households were women-headed.
Furthermore, it had become clear that women’s burdens were exacerbated in a number of
areas after the disasters and that the survey questions needed to include indicators to
monitor these.
The indicators include: household expenditure, breakdown of monthly expenditure, child
labour, food provision for household members, type of sanitation facilities, access to
improved water sources, underweight children, persons with disabilities, gender disparity
in primary and secondary education, access to secure tenure and households that can
afford repairs to their houses after natural disasters. The survey focuses on households,
yet sex-disaggregation is consistently undertaken where possible.
The city government, local communities and the private sector are now engaged in
planning for climate change based on the city-wide assessment and the household
surveys. Working groups were constituted and led by the city government with strong
stakeholder representation to increase people’s resilience to climate change. The working
groups address: i) improving settlements and basic infrastructure, ii) enhancing
livelihoods, and iii) developing climate and disaster risk management systems. Action
area iv) improving environmental management and climate change mitigation actions
relates to the expressed commitment of the local government and the citizens to
contribute their share to reducing (GHGs) while improving the local environment. Energy
saving measures are proposed for the operation of buildings and in the transport sector
and two-stroke engines of local three-wheelers are to be converted to four-stroke engines.
A wide range of possible interventions have emerged from the working groups to make
Sorsogon and its citizens more climate-resilient. They include: expanding the existing
micro-finance scheme which targets in particular women, to include a micro-insurance
for livelihood and housing, and the planting of local nut trees as wind breakers to reduce
erosion and to provide additional income. Priority issues relate to shelter and disaster risk
reduction. Based on their capacity and the need to diversify their livelihoods, selected
community members will be trained in making houses in low-income communities more
climate resilient and to help rebuilding these houses more quickly should they be
destroyed. To further support this initiative, the city will stock tools and building
materials.
Some women were complaining that schools were closed for too long after disasters as
they functioned as shelters. The city is now committed to ensuring that schools would be
retrofitted ensuring that they can recommence shortly after disasters. This would help
women to attend to the immediate needs after the disaster while their children would be
in school. It was also decided that some schools would have to be relocated as they were
originally erected in flood prone areas and directly on the beachfront.
Concluding remarks
The initial participatory process led inadvertently to a more strongly developed gender
assessment, addressing particular gender concerns and providing the city and community
with some disaggregated data upon which more informed decisions can be taken in order
to respond to climate change.
All actions were recommended by mixed-gender multi-sectoral groups and many of these
recommendations clearly attempt to reverse the expected over proportional burden that
disasters and by extension climate change would have on women.
However, much of the household level assessment only partly touched upon the
prevailing gender division of labour. The assessment only provided a glimpse on the
different risk perceptions of women and men.
Existing coping strategies were assessed, but a stronger focus on the different approaches
of women and men may further benefit the development of climate change responses.
Gender roles in general and in particular in regard to possible roles of women to
contribute to and to benefit from or suffer under adaptation and mitigation measures were
not assessed in detail. The emerging climate change responses would benefit from a
deeper gender assessment.
Bernhard Barth is a member of the Cities in Climate Change project team of UNHABITAT. He is based in Nairobi. He is the focal point for the pilot initiative in
Sorsogon. Bernhard is also the gender focal point of UN-HABITAT’s Training and
Capacity Building Branch and as such oversaw the development of the Gender in Local
Government – A sourcebook for trainers tool. He conducts gender training for urban
practitioners.