WUNRN
Heinrich Boell Foundation
Direct Link to Full 52-2012 Page
Publication:
The
Green Economy seeks a way out of the financial, climate, and energy crisis and,
at the same time, tries to make the connection to the Millennium Development
Goals and poverty alleviation. Taking a closer look from a feminist perspective
at the papers on the Green Economy, one is struck by the fact how few gender
aspects they contain. Twenty years after the Rio Conference they seem to be
gender-blind. In 1992, the Agenda 21, the Rio Conference’s final document,
recognized women as key actors for environmental protection and poverty
alleviation and granted them rights to shape development and environmental
policy and make decisions in that area. On this basis, a broad consensus on
gender policy came about in the 1990s, namely that ecology and sustainability
are not gender neutral, the analysis of gender relations is vital for
understanding the relationship between nature and society as well as for
resource management and for overcoming environmental crises, without gender
justice, there will be no environmental justice, no sustainability, and no good
life for all. Two decades on, the Green Economy papers of the United Nations
Environment Programme1 (UNEP) lag behind the Agenda 21. Neither do their
various topics reflect gender mainstreaming nor is there an effort to take a
feminist perspective into consideration.
