The CDM, established by the Kyoto Protocol, has been highly effective in identifying and funding cost-effective opportunities to reduce emissions. However, it has been widely criticised for prioritising emissions reductions over sustainable development. This brief explores ways of ensuring that CDM initiatives contribute to local development and enhance opportunities for projects to meet local women’s and men’s needs. There are a number of suggestions, including:

• incorporating gender concerns into national sustainable development criteria, and making gender analyses mandatory for all proposed and current CDM projects;
• strengthening project stakeholder consultation requirements, mandating widely publicised meetings with local people, considering possible gender impacts, and making special efforts to include women;
• ensuring that representatives of civil society organisations attend stakeholder consultation meetings, and advocating for the inclusion of gender in project approval processes at both the national and international levels
• increasing the focus on community-based projects that are developed from the bottom up; and
• increasing the capacity of grassroots women’s groups and community development organisations.