International Women's Day 2022

Today, on International Women’s Day (IWD 2022), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reaffirms its commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls around the world, including those on the move. 

In alignment with the theme for the United Nations Observance of IWD 2022, Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow, IOM has set its own internal theme: Climate change and migration: A matter of gender equality.  

We have learnt that gender is one of the most important factors shaping the migration journey, including environmental migration. From the motives of migrating and the challenges they face along the way, to the opportunities available at destination, gender affects every step of the way. Structural barriers to gender equality such as gender roles, dependence on natural resources, and gendered division of labour in households and communities, continue to hinder women and girls to effectively prepare for and respond to climate impacts. 

At the same time, women are active agents of change and transformation. They lead the way on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and response, to build a more sustainable future for all. 

To address various needs of migrants of all gender and age groups and ensure the effectiveness of our collective efforts in environmental migration, IOM is committed to promote gender-sensitive and human rights-based approaches for migration management, policies and practice in the context of climate change. We need to ensure gender equality and diversity inclusion in the decision-making process and implementation of policies and programmes in all spheres and at all stages of environmental migration.  

Online training module “Gender Equality and Migration” 

To help us better understand why gender equality matters in migration, IOM launched the online training module, I Know Gender 16: Gender Equality and Migration (the enrollment key IKGM16-IOM-2021), which was jointly developed by UN Women. It is now available for everyone in English, French and Spanish. 

Online panel discussion (8th March) on Gender, Data and Climate-Driven Mobility  

Furthermore, on 8th March 2022, IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) invites you to join an online panel discussion Gender and Beyond: Unlocking the Potential of Data and an Intersectional Analysis of Climate-Driven Mobility to explore if and how intersectionality can be operationalized in humanitarian data collection and analysis, on the impacts of disaster displacement and environmental migration.  

Representative data is pivotal to developing durable responses to environmental mobility that reflect the different needs and impacts faced by populations. The panel will explore how data collection and analysis practices can be transformed to better account for interlocking vulnerabilities and systems of marginalization, to improve our understanding of the varied gendered impacts and experiences of displacement and environmental migration, with the aim of informing better responses.  

Please kindly use this link to join the event. The discussion will be in English.