Women in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea are exposed to disproportionate and increasing risk of climate-induced conflicts due to heightened vulnerability of local communities arising from climate change and variability. Through the climate-gender-conflict nexus, UNDP and IOM will jointly implement gender-transformational conflict prevention interventions that aim to empower women leadership in climate-induced conflict prevention to reduce the risk exposure of vulnerable local communities.

The project will empower women leaders as conflict-sensitive community resilience activists through training, sharing best practices, while strengthening inclusive peacebuilder networks advances gender equality. While focused on women’s empowerment, men will also be engaged as well to address women’s needs. Particular attention will be paid to communicating women’s rights, their access to information resources as well as inclusion and leadership in community decision-making.

Targeting high-risk communities, the project will leverage on empowered women leadership to support the enhancement of community resilience in confronting climate shocks while reducing the risk of climate-induced conflicts through the facilitated development of enhanced Community Peace For Development Plans (CPDP) as well as the implementation of priority aspects of individual CPDPs.

The project will also be focused on addressing knowledge gaps within the climate-gender-conflict nexus given the recent emergence of such an approach within the prevention agenda with the aim of integration with development of local and provincial frameworks through gendered analyses and assessments, and climate and gender-sensitive peace and security strategies.