“There must be a clear provision that would provide a legal basis for the use of these funds for DRR. And this is what mainstreaming DRR means,” Loren pointed out.

Loren explained that such a strategy is desirable not only because it does not require additional resources, but is in fact “an efficient use of existing resources.”

“By investing in pre-disaster construction, we avoid or at least considerably decrease post-disaster costs,” she said, adding that the 2008 General Appropriations Act (GAA) under Sec. 37 also authorizes departments, bureaus, offices and agencies to implement projects designed to address disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparednes activities.

Furthermore, since DRR is a cross-cutting issue that presents a common concern among various departments, Loren said it would be justifiable to allocate a percentage of these departments’ budgets for DRR-related activities.

Loren was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where she participated in high level round table (HLRT) focusing on mobilizing resources for disaster risk reduction at the Third Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction yesterday.

During that forum, Loren, who has been bestowed AsiaPacific Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction by the United Nations ISDR, delivered a speech during the Parliamentarian Forum on Allocating Budgetary Resources for Disaster Risk Reduction yesterday at the conference.

Loren noted that in the Philippines, the use of funds as specified under the General Appropriations Act is primarily directed at post-disaster activities and therefore reflects the still reactive approach.

Under the GAA, funds are to be spent “for aid, relief and rehabilitation services to communities/areas affected by man-made and natural calamities, repair and reconstruction of permanent structures, including other capital expenditures for disaster operation and rehabilitation activities.”

“Clearly, there is scope for the insertion of DRR,”Loren said. “Instead of focusing on post-disaster repair and reconstruction, legislators, given their power of the purse, can channel some of the funds for disaster-proofing public infrastructures.’

The Philippine Congress is currently engaged in a marathon deliberations on the 2009 budget, and that, Loren said, “it is best time to determine if disaster prevention is given necessary budgetary attention.”

“Because the Philippine government, as well as the other governments, have finite resources, decision makers andgovernment leaders should find more ways to secure greater financial allocation for disaster risk reduction,” Loren stressed.

In 2008, the national Calamity Fund was allotted P2 billion out of the P1.227 trillion national budget. Out of this calamity fund, P517.297 million was appropriated for Quick Response Fund.

The proposed national budget for 2009 is P1.415 trillion, but Loren noted that the appropriations for the NCF and QRF remain the same.

In the Ministerial Conference in Kuala Lumpur, a set of key policy recommendations for scaling up investment in disaster risk reduction at regional, national and local events has been identified.

The HLRT also came out with policy recommendations on legislations, institutional mechanisms, financial tools and modalities for enhancing regional cooperation in the Asian and Pacific Region.

Loren, who is also UN champion for disaster risk reduction in Asia-Pacific, initially made the proposal during the world parliamentarians’ Global Platform 2009 in Geneva last June as a creative solution to raise funds for disaster risk reduction programs.

In announcing her plan to push her proposal at the Copenhagen conference, Loren said that the “huge devastation and the horrific casualties caused by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, as well as rising threats of even greater natural catastrophes in the future, make international cooperation more urgent in combating climate change.”

World parliamentarians adopted Loren’s proposal for a debt-for-risk reduction swap at the Global Platform 2009 meeting in Geneva as a practical approach to climate change adaptation involving both developed and developing countries.

“It’s a new concept adopted at the UN Global Platform on DRR. This is the easiest because no new funds, financing or resources, are needed. This is a creative way of paying for debt and it’s a creative collaboration between the developed and poor developing nations. In this effort, nobody loses, humanity wins,” said Senator Loren Legarda, the United Nation’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) champion for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in the Asia Pacific region.

In a summary report on the global platform proceedings, the Chair said, “The Global Platform recognized a drastic mismatch between the resources required to address disaster risk in developing countries and those actually available. A massive scaling up of action is needed. Put bluntly, many countries must dedicate substantially more funds from national budgets – or increasingly suffer the consequences. This is also a must for the international community, since some countries suffer from institutional and capacity weaknesses and unless their capacities are strengthened implementation will not succeed.”

“A variety of innovations, such as incentives for retrofitting, risk transfer tools, risk- sensitive development, private sector involvement, debt swaps to finance disaster reduction measures and linkages with adaptation financing were proposed at the Global Platform,” the conference report said.  “Institutional innovations proposed included more direct resourcing of local initiatives and groups that are effective in reducing risks, such as grassroots women’s organizations.”

The Philippines has a foreign debt of around $52 billion, draining a huge portion for the national budget for payment of amortizations and interests every year and contributing to a huge deficit.

Through a debt swap, the creditor country cancels a portion of debt.

In return, the debtor country invests the canceled amount in development projects according to conditions previously agreed by both parties.

Championed by the Philippines in the United Nations’ system, debt swaps have surfaced on the agenda of some donor or lending countries as a novel way to finance the UN Millennium Development goals.

Some of the projects that can be funded to lessen risks during disasters are the building of safe hospitals and schools, planting mangroves in coastal areas, cleaning up rivers in blighted urban areas and retrofitting unsafe public infrastructures as a protection against imminent earthquake, said the senator.

The Legarda proposal was commended by no less than UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes who considered it “a noble idea” along with the proposal to use 30 percent of the UN climate adaptation funds for DRR.

Presently, 45 percent of the Philippine annual budget goes to debt service.

“There is great disparity between the 53 percent of Filipinos who consider themselves poor in the latest Social Weather Station (SWS) survey and the 32.9 percent of poor Filipinos as determined by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB),” said Loren.

The chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, Loren said that the discrepancy arises not only from the three-year difference when the NSCB last estimated poverty in the Philippines in 2006 and when the SWS conducted the survey for the month of September 2009.

“There’s a 20-percent difference that could only be blamed on the unrealistic paramaters set by the outgoing administration in determining who among Filipinos are poor,” said Loren.

“I am, of course, referring to the NSCB’s poverty threshold of P15,057 for a family composed of five members, which is just too low and unrealistic,” she stressed.

Loren cited the finding of an independent think-tank that based on the government-set poverty threshold, a Filipino would just need P41.25 a day to meet both his food and non-food needs each day. “That’s even less than a dollar a day considering the present exchange rate of P47.50 to a US dollar,” said Loren.

The senator said that the next administration that would be voted into office in next year’s election must come up with more realistic poverty indicators because undereportage of real poverty incidence results to government’s policies, actions and programs not being based on reality.

“If government is to be effective in helping provide livelihood, boosting the economy and ensuring food sufficiency for the 88.57 million Filipinos (as of August 2007), it must first determine where we really stand and must shed off its blinders,” said Loren.

The Philippine population is projected to hit 92.3 million this year.

Reacting to the SWS survey, a Malacañang official blamed the economic slowdown and the recent typhoons that hit the country for the increase in the poverty incidence.

“There may be a grain of truth in that claim by Malacañang, considering that the SWS survey for September must have been undertaken at least after the first of three typhoons, Ondoy, had hit the country,” said Loren.

“But typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi primarily hit Luzon, while the SWS survey was nationwide in scope. So, it’s not at all factual, this claim by the government.”

Just the same, Loren said that the devastations caused by the typhoons would indeed necessitate a review of the 2010 national budget because the same had been proposed well before the three typhoons devastated the country.

“The next administration will have its work cut out for it. It must address worsening poverty, which is expected to be aggravated by climate change related concerns, such as what we’ve seen with Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi,” said Loren.

“A report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) says that our government agencies have a ‘low capacity to adapt to climate change,’” said Loren.

“That’s the very problem which the Climate Change Act seeks to address, thus the urgency of funding and implementing the salient provisions of this new law whose passage had been hailed by the international community.”

Loren pointed out that since the executive department drafted the proposed budget for next year even before typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi devastated the country, the funding for disaster-risk reduction and climate-change mitigation may not have been prioritized.

The senator called for a review of the proposed budget, the report for which is already being finalized by the Senate Committee on Finance.

“Powerful typhoons wrought havoc on our country and showed how unprepared we are in dealing with disasters, including in conducting rescue and relief operations. We must resign ourselves to the fact that more powerful calamities are coming our way due to climate change,” said Loren.

“But we must not be caught again with our guards down,” she stressed.

Loren identified the following climate change programs whose funding must be included in next year’s budget:

·        Immediate creation of the Climate Change Commission which will coordinate and monitor all of the climate change-related  programs and policies of the country;

·        Strengthening the capabilities of local government units (LGUs) to deal with disasters by allocating portions of the national budget for the purpose, such as the purchase of pump boats and other rescue equipment;

·        Helping the agriculture sector adapt to climate change (e.g. the planting of water-submersible crops and the identification of alternative marketing routes during floods and landslides)

·        Ensuring the provision of more efficient health services during disasters, including for the thousands of people who are sheltered in evacuation and relief centers;

·        Funding environmental programs and activities like reducing carbon emissions and increasing the country’s forest cover as a way to help in the global effort against climate change

Loren said that on her many visits to relief centers, many evacuees had complained to her of the lack of health services afforded them, making them wonder whether they had survived past calamities only to get sick or, worse, to die in evacuation centers.

“We must think out of the box when it comes to agriculture because the typhoons, floods and other calamities are here to stay. We must pour money to research and development of, say, rice varities that can still be harvested despite being submerged in flood water,” said Loren.

“Our food supply routes must also be given more consideration against being cut so as to avert our experince last month when Pepeng cut the supply of vegetables from Mountain Province.”

“The 1.541-trillion budget for next year was formulated by the Executive Department before the super typhoons hit our country, killed hundreds of our people, destroyed millions worth of properties and infrastructure, and devastated our people’s main sources of livelihood,” Legarda said.

In the President’s budget message, priorities were given to infrastructure, agriculture, education, health, poverty reduction, and good governance.  “This is the first time that the Executive Department has given priority to environment and climate change in its budget preparations.  But we must make sure that funds for these priority concerns are properly utilized and disbursed.”

“Now that the Senate Committee on Finance is finalizing its committee report on the general appropriations bill, we must re-evaluate and recast government priorities so that our agencies and local government units will be better equipped and our people will be better prepared for impending typhoons and calamities that may once again strike our country.”

First and foremost, the 2010 GAA must incorporate funding for the implementation of the Climate

hange Act which was signed into law on October 23, 2009 long after the President’s National Expenditure Program was submitted to Congress.  Loren, principal author and sponsor of Republic Act 9729, pushes for the full implementation and funding of the landmark legislation. The new law mandates the development of a framework strategy and local action plans on climate change.

The Climate Change Act provides for the creation of the Commission on Climate Change that will be the sole policy-making body of the government tasked to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the programs and action plans of the government relating to climate change

“We should protect our agricultural and fishery sector by first providing for the identification of the Strategic Agriculture and Fisheries Development  Zones or SAFDZs that would delineate the biophysical properties of agri and fisheries areas including climate change adaptabilities of crops, poultry and livestock. The zones will also be the physical planning base for agri and fisheries programs and should be guarded against conversion, destructive activities like excessive quarrying and mining, forest fires, overfishing and other illegal activities in coastal areas.  Second , we should enable and empower local government units to determine and prepare for their own disaster mitigation through strong counterparting  of funds for agricultural and fisheries activities by correcting the inequity in salaries of local extension workers and devolving the wherewithals of extension that have been kept by the national government since the passage of the Local Government Code. But to strengthen this budgetary provision, we should pass the National Extension Bill before the passage of the GAA. Third, we should allow the farmers to produce the country’s buffer stock—especially in times of calamities—and lessen dependence on imported food  to enable them to determine and produce for their—and the country’s— needs  as we enter  the liberalization regime in ASEAN. , Fourth, we should provide for the National Agriculture and Fisheries Education System—to ensure that the curriculum in all ladders of education strategically incorporate climate change in  lifelong learning.  Fifth, we should ensure that the farm-to-market roads are strategically networked in  production and marketing routes and are quality-controlled to last typhoons and floods through the preparation of an Agriculture and Fisheries Infrastructure Plan. Sixth, we should identify the Basic Needs Communities in agricultural and fisheries areas to focus on the distinct basic needs intervention for the impoverished  producers of our food whether in times of calamities or in between harvests. And seventh, we should ensure that the food our people eat are safe at all times by providing for a strengthened food-safety regulations in the Department of Agriculture (DA). And seventh, we should ensure that  the 2010 budget  should implement all the provisions of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) through an adequate monitoring budget. Included in the monitoring is putting in place and implementing  a planning-programming-budgeting system for AFMA which I—as chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries— have already asked the DA to follow.

“We should also provide more efficient health services for our people, particularly Hospitals and health facilities that are Safe from Disasters because these are frontline facilities when floods, hurricanes, cyclones, and earthquakes strike. We have learned from bitter experiences in the past that many are adversely impacted because safety measures in hospitals were not integrated in their design, construction and functionality. Provisions for medicines and vaccines should also be allocated for the potential outbreak of diseases like leptospirosis borne by typhoons.”

The 2010 GAA should likewise provide for the implementation of environment protection programs that will help our local communities prevent, prepare for and minimize the potential risks they will have to suffer from the same severe weather patterns that we are experiencing now. Loren is keen on finding a budget for green jobs and resilient livelihoods to be able to offer diversified income opportunities to the most vulnerable populations to climate change in the rural areas.

Specifically, Loren wants to develop rural livelihoods through agro-forestry. There is a way to improve the livelihoods of our people in the countryside while at the same time protecting the environment and adapting to climate change.

According to Loren, “unutilized and marginal lands can be planted with trees, such as rubber trees, which can be a source of income for Filipinos. ”

“If there’s one important lesson that we must learn from the super typhoons that ravaged not only our countryside, but Metro Manila as well, it is that the government, both at the national and local levels, must draw up preventive measures so that our people and our communities will remain safe and protected.”

“The 2010 budget must not be maintenance budget. Waking up from the country’s vulnerability to disasters and climate change, next year’s budget must be instrumental in financing our climate change work to save lives and livelihoods. The 2010 budget will reveal if our leaders and decision-makers in the government have learned to finally mainstream climate change in the budgeting process. ”

“The passage of the Climate Change Act, could not have come to a time more ideal than today. And I am pleased to be with you again to further discuss this landmark legislation,” said Loren who chairs the Senate Committee on Climate Change.

The filing of this measure two years ago took inspiration from the Albay Declaration, the outcome document of the First National Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, as it called for “the passage of a policy prioritizing climate change adaptation in the national agenda”.

“The ensuing discussions on the threats of climate change to our basic human rights - food, potable water, shelter, decent livelihood and life itself, have occupied us for some time now. In response to these impacts, vulnerable countries like the Philippines should ramp up efforts to enhance the resilience of our people,” laments Loren.

She added, “Special attention should be given to the poorest of the poor, who are also the most vulnerable to the scourge of disasters. They are the small farmers, fisherfolk, upland dwellers, urban squatters living on riverbanks, forestlands, seashores, and low-lying areas. Without planning and assistance, more will lose their lives, homes and farms that make up their life’s possession. Just a single extreme weather event can derail the achievement of our Millennium Development Goals’ target.”

“While climate change has recently been at the forefront of international and local discourse, it is perhaps only now that we have seen its devastating impacts,” said Loren, citing the consequences of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng.

She said it took these two calamities “for us to realize the urgent need to confront the drivers of our vulnerability to disasters and climate change – poor urban governance, vulnerable rural livelihoods and ecosystems decline – in order to save lives and secure livelihoods.”

Climate Change Act will build resilience to the impacts of climate change. The Commission on Climate Change shall be the sole policy-making body of the government tasked to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the programs and action plans of the government relating to climate change.

The Climate Change Act mandates the Commission to:

1. Coordinate and synchronize climate change programs of national government agencies;

2. Recommend key development investments in climate-sensitive sectors such as water resources, agriculture, forestry, coastal and marine resources, health, and infrastructure to ensure the achievement of national sustainable development goals;

3. Create an enabling environment that shall promote broader multi-stakeholder participation and integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation;

4. Coordinate and establish a close partnership with the National Disaster Coordinating Council in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness in reducing the people’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters; and

5. Formulate the Framework Strategy and Program on Climate Change, the National Climate Change Action Plan and facilitate local action plans.

The Climate Change Act puts the local governments in the frontline of the formulation, planning and implementation of climate change action plans which includes risk reduction, in their respective areas speeding up the capacity building for local adaptation planning, implementation and monitoring of climate change initiatives in vulnerable communities.

Further, the new legislation places disaster risk reduction as the first line of defense against climate change risks. Recognizing that climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction are closely linked and effective disaster risk reduction enhances climate change adaptive capacity, the measure will ensure the integration of disaster risk reduction into policies, programs and initiatives on climate change.

The Climate Change Act, the first in Asia, sums up the country’s great resolve to take the issue of climate change very seriously. It goes to show that we value above everything else the welfare of our people through the protection of the world where we all live.

“This law is for us, our children and the generations after them. Ensuring its full implementation is the great challenge and responsibility posed to us all,” said Loren.

“Development cannot be focused only on economic gains without the accompanying responsibility of good governance.  Development should not create risks for our people and our economy.  We need to ensure the resilience of our development investments,” said Loren.

In a “Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2009: Executive Brief”, Loren said, “The world as a whole must act immediately to seize and reduce disaster risks.  For the global picture has been grim.  The world in the year 2008 alone saw 321 disasters which killed about a quarter of a million people and affected more than 200 million lives.

“The total economic cost was a stunning 180 billion US dollars, which is twice the average annual economic losses of the past seven years.  And the region of the Asia and the Pacific has borne much of the brunt, accounting for more than 80 percent of the global loss of life.

“About 70 to 80 per cent of disasters have been climate-related.  And yet, given the gloomy scenario of climate change, more disasters are expected to happen. Indeed, climate change and disaster risks have become one of the greatest challenges to human development the world faces today.”

Based on the recently released Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, Loren stated,  disaster risks will only be reduced  if countries successfully address the three underlying drivers of risk: poor urban governance, ecosystem decline, and vulnerable rural livelihoods.

“If these drivers are not addressed, climate change will lead to dramatic increases in disaster risk and associated poverty outcomes in developing countries,” Loren warned.  She cited the stagger ravages of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng in Luzon to illustrate her warning.

Explaining further, Loren said that improving urban governance involves stopping corruption and enforcing building codes, among others; protecting ecosystems which involves protecting forests, cleaning rivers, and stopping pollution, among others; and enhancing rural livelihoods means improving  agricultural productivity and supporting farmers better.

For good governance, she cited Japan were 22.5 million people are exposed annually to typhoons, compared to 16 million people in the Philippines. However, the estimated annual death toll in the Philippines is almost 17 times greater than that of Japan.  Overall, tropical cyclone mortality risk in low-income countries is approximately 200 times higher than in countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for similar numbers exposed.

“Although we tend to focus only on the big disasters … the report has highlighted that it is the smaller disasters – the ones that kill less than 10 people and destroy less than 10 houses – which we should be especially wary about.  This kind of disasters is on the rise – turbocharged by climate change.  They diminish our capital, especially for the poor – human, economic, social and environmental capital – making us less resilient and unable to resist disasters and any crisis a typical household may face, be it disease, loss of jobs or livelihoods,” Loren said.

“Poor rural livelihoods, dependent on rain-fed agriculture and on a single main harvest for annual food and income, are highly vulnerable to weather fluctuations and hazards, which can lead to crop or livestock loss.  Poor and indebted households have little or no surplus capacity to absorb these losses and to recover,” she declared.

On ecosystems, she said, over the last century, the proportion of land area covered by forest in the Philippines has fallen from 22 percent in 1990 to just 19.4 percent in 2000.  As recorded, large area of forest lands were already converted to tree plantation, mining and marginal upland agriculture which gave a 1.4 per cent average deforestation rate from 1990 to 2000, the highest among Asian countries.

“It is a challenge that must be taken up by local, national governments, academe, scientific community, civil society, private sector and everyone, for it is a reality that confronts our communities, families, our daily lives.  It is by no means distant; it is here and now,” said Loren.

Loren, chair of the Senate committee on climate change, issued the warning in an address to the plenary session of the  National Conference on Climate Change Adaptation held at the Diamond Hotel in Manila.

“Tropical storm Ondoy and typhoon Pepeng recently reminded us that words alone are not enough to address climate change,” Loren declared. “We need to start doing something lest our roadmaps, action plans, and blueprints be washed away by swelling floods.

“There is indeed no more fitting time to say that reducing disaster and climate risk has become a moral imperative for governments and a social responsibility for all than now — when having less in life means losing life.”

Loren praised the provincial government of Albay for being consistently at the forefront of mainstreaming adaptation into local policy and decision-making.

She said that the Albay Declaration, the outcome of the First National Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, served as an inspiration for her in pushing two Senate resolutions adopting the declaration, and for her filing a bill which is now a law, the Philippine Climate Change Act, now Republic Act No. 9729.

She explained that “through this measure, we can speed up the capacity building for local adaptation planning, implementation and monitoring of climate change initiatives in vulnerable communities. The Commission on Climate Change will be tasked to provide technical and financial support to local research and development programs and projects.

“To mobilize resources for adaptation, government financial institutions will be mandated to provide preferential financial packages for climate change-related projects. All these features aim at mainstreaming climate change in our development plans and poverty-reduction strategies.”

She also co-sponsored the Disaster Risk Reduction, Management and Recovery Act which tackles disaster risk management.  “Through this bill, the local calamity fund and the national calamity fund can be used for climate change-related activities and not just for post-disaster response.”

She also convinced the Senate to create a Standing Committee and an Oversight Committee on Climate Change which she now chairs.

As the UN Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation for Asia-Pacific, Loren had been going around the Asian region in the last several months campaigning for the concerted efforts of the international community in combating the threats of climate change and in disaster risk reduction.

Loren told the assembly that to address climate change, societies must “tackle the drivers of our vulnerability to disasters and climate change — poor urban governance, vulnerable rural livelihoods and ecosystems decline.

“We must strengthen governance in the urban centers, clean all clogged esteros, canals, and other waterways, dredging rivers and make use of geo-hazard maps to avoid exposing  people, homes, and industries to disaster risks.

“Second, we must protect our ecosystems because ecosystem services are declining. This means massive planting of trees. This means protecting our forests and our people from risks of landslides.

“And third, we must enhance rural livelihoods which 75% of the poor depend on for their subsistence. This means improving agricultural productivity and supporting our farmers better.”

“Women are powerful agents of change in the overall climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts,” Loren said in a speech at the National Women’s Summit in Miriam College in Manila.

“Many current policies have not recognized the gender-specific effects of climate change. This is a crucial issue to address, for it is women that bear the load of climate change’s savagery,” she declared.

Loren deplored that while women play a positive role in Philippine society, they are the most vulnerable, with women accounting for the largest number of poor persons, around12.8 million in 2006.   She also said that women receive less medical attention than men.

“Poverty takes the hardest toll on women in the family. They are the mothers who manage the household finances in their families. A starving mother carrying her ailing child is often the public face of famines and food shortages,” she said.  But they play vital roles against climate change.

“Women can spearhead the re-education of families. Women can alter how they manage the family households. They could promote zero-waste in our backyard and in our communities.

Mothers can teach children to be environmentally friendly and promote recycling in our communities. 

Mothers can also promote the use renewable forms of household energy such as biomass.

 ‘Women can also encourage behavioural changes in children’s attitude towards economic development, one that is respectful of the environment. “Therefore, efforts to combat climate change and mitigate the risks and challenges it poses to communities should be gender sensitive and gender responsive. It is time to redress the subordinate position of women in all spheres of their lives,” she declared.

Loren said women need solid grounding on issues such as climate change politics, climate protection and preparedness through disaster risk reduction. Education and information are vital part of the effort to make women truly active in mitigation.

“Programs should explore how they might contribute to enable women and men’s autonomous adaptation efforts, since we recognize that people adapt to climate change on their own. We should then lift the social, cultural and institutional barriers that constrain women from effectively adapting to climate change effects in order to seek welfare and well-being for themselves and their families.

“Gender concerns and perspectives must also be integrated into policies and programs for sustainable development. Assessments on women’s susceptibility or exposure to the degradation of the environment and hazards must also be conducted.

“To assess the impacts of development and environmental policies on women, mechanisms at all levels must be strengthened or established. Technical assistance to women in agriculture, fisheries, small enterprises, and trade must also be provided,” Loren stressed.