Part III
Climate change effects on agriculture
Climate change affects various aspects of our life and not only in the region, but throughout the world as a whole. For this reason speakers from different parts of the world delivered their reports at the Central Asian Conference on Climate Change, presenting the best practices to combat changes.
For instance, Dai Yamawaki - the representative of the Regional Bureau of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for Europe and Central Asia, noted that climate change poses a serious threat to food security. To this end, FAO has developed the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) initiative. Its meaning is to adapt agriculture to the ongoing climate change.
The plans for climate-smart agriculture were included in the State Funds of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Dai Yamawaki stressed that the natural resources integrated management "should help stabilize and even reverse the trends of soil salinization, reduce erosion, improve water catchment and retention, increase carbon sequestration and reduce the agro-biodiversity loss, thereby reducing the land degradation trends." However, regretfully, there is still such a problem that, despite the influx of investments in the climate sector, the agricultural sector still lacks the financial means to adapt to the changes that are taking place.
Lyudmila Kiktenko, the CAREC intersectoral cooperation Program Manager, presented an example of solving problems in the field of agriculture, such as introduction of "urban" agriculture. The principle is to produce livestock products on sites within the city area, for example in courtyards and even on balconies.
Gender in Climate Change
A special attention at the conference was paid to gender in the context of combating the consequences of climate change. In this respect women represent a particularly vulnerable group for various reasons. Firstly, they often have limited access to climate change information. Secondly, climate change significantly worsens the domestic work conditions, often forcing women to travel long distances, for example, to collect drinking water. But most importantly climate change has a serious impact on women’s health, including their reproductive function.
Zhanna Babagalieva, the CAREC Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Program Specialist, presented the results of a research on how gender influences sustainable development in Tajikistan. 93 people took part in it and it was found that women in Tajikistan are very poorly aware of adaptation to climate change. It was also revealed that women are highly vulnerability to climate change. Tn Tajikistan - a country with a high level of male labor migration, women's control of the household budget is not seen as an indicator of increasing their role in society, but rather as an additional responsibility.
Ms. Babagalieva offered recommendations on the initiation of programs that contribute to more active involvement of women in combating climate change. Women can and should become the main driving force in initiating adaptation measures, especially in the rural areas, characterized by a high level of male labour migration.
Issues related to gender within the framework of the UN Framework Convention were also discussed during the session.
“Climate change mitigation programmes should change the women’s dependent status”
Diana Ismailova, Gender Coordinator, Oxfam GB, Tajikistan
Conclusions
The climate change issue affects a large number of different aspects of life. In addition, climate change is a global challenge. In other words, in order to be able to withstand the ongoing changes, all sectors, all countries and regions should act as one cohesive organism.
Summing up the Central Asian Conference on Climate Change, it should be noted that the Conference has created a unique opportunity for the exchange of experience between representatives of various organizations and experts dealing with climate change at both the regional and international levels.
As Gayane Minasyan, the World Bank representative noted, the Central Asian Conference on Climate Change "collected and will collect representatives of all countries to exchange knowledge and experience".
At the same time, the process of regional cooperation in the field of climate change will also be supported at other platforms in the region, including upcoming Central Asian International Environmental Forum to be held from 5 to 7 June 2018 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
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This publication is produced with support from the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program for the Aral Sea Basin (CAMP4ASB)