Green Economy, Value Chains & the Inclusion of

Women

Dr.Christa Wichterich/WIDE+HU, Berlin, 25.1.2013

Solve the Crisis through Green EconomyUN/UNEP 2008 – fix the financial/economic & the climate crisis...

transition from brown to green economy... through „power of the market“, green investment/ technology/jobs... „abandon business as usual“... „alternative paradigm“... transformation...

UNEP 2009: Global Green New Deal: 3 objectives

1) economic recovery 2) poverty reduction 3) reduction of carbon emissions & ecosystem degradation

OECD 2011: „Green Growth“European Commission 2011: „competitive low-carbon society“Normative definition: „GE... results in improved well-being & social

equity while significantly reducing environmental risks & ecological scarcities“... „Greening = driver for growth“

Making business/capitalism more sustainable

Main Assumption of Green Economy:Protect nature by putting

monetary value on it Economisation of nature – internalisation of costs

Ecological economics: natural capital & ecosystems create value/ are productive

Market instruments of validationPatenting & trade in intellectual property rights (TRIPS) „Economics of climate change“ (N.Stern):

CDM, PES, REDD, REDD+ - trade in emission rights

TEEB-study – economic validation of ecosystem services & biodiversity

Financialisation of nature: Rio+20: Natural Capital Declaration by banks/investors/insurers

Nature is separated from social realm & livelihoods of people

Women‘s Participation in Green Growth A Potential Fully Realised?

World Bank: 1) gender equality = smart economics = neoliberal empowerment

2) Green growth = efficient, clean, resilient & inclusiveUNEP: hardly a gender perspective, no human rights or justice frame

EU Greens‘ Green New Deal: hardly any gender-sensitive & gender- just perspective (Mara Kuhl)

DCED/BMZ: Development aid =assistance to private sector development

Inclusion of Women- Inclusive Liberalism

- Flexible workers in green value chains- Small & medium entrepreneurs- Green & ethical consumers- Care workers for families, esp. food security- Contract labourers- Inclusive business models e.g. smallholders,

small scale farmers, feminised agriculture, poor- Actors in climate adaptation- Customers of microcredits & microinsurance- Remittances of migrant agricultural

workers & berry pickers

Exclusion is a problem but inclusion as well!

GEN-DER

ESSEN-TIA-LISM

GEN-DER

MO-DER-NISA-TION

Restructuring Agriculture & Reconceptionalisation of Food

Security

Climate Smart Agriculture & Women

World Bank proposed to include agriculture in CDM: win-win-situation

All forms that reduce emissions from soil or absorb CO2 in the soil, mixed agriculture, agroforestry, tree planting

Conservation agriculture without ploughing, less CO2- emissions, promoted by e.g. Monsanto, presently practised in Brasil

Women smale scale farmers = prime target group, validation of their work through integration in market mechanism but dependant from financial market

Economisation ofAgricultural NatureCulture &

Undermining Moral EconomyExpansion market rationale subordination of logic of

care/social reproduction/subsistence e.g. waste land & untapped resource

Conflict between renewable energy & food securityContradiction between market framework &

human/women‘s rights framework e.g. financialisationConflict between scientific knowledge & local

knowledge Tension between individual rights & commonsResult in ambivalences in subjectivities & multiple Result in ambivalences in subjectivities & multiple identitiesidentities

„What could be a burden for a city woman,

for us is a space of power“

Feminist political ecology & economy have to analyse those contradictions & ambivalences

„Green Economy is a False Solution“...“new form of colonisation & appropriation of the natural resources of the South“

18.6.2012Rio de JaneiroWMW

Women against the Commodification of our

Bodies, our Lives & Nature

„We need to overcome this model of development.“

Thank you for your attention!

Parto, towards buen vivir!