Enabling Communities for Climate Change Adaptation Planning :Understanding Gender Roles. Mainly Targeting SDG 5 and 13.

Climate change presents the single biggest threat to development, and its widespread impacts affect the most vulnerable groups specially in developing countries. In Jordan, climate change is expected to have varied impacts on its climate, natural resources and local communities. Jordan is a resource poor country facing a set of other complex developmental challenges, the average temperatures are increasing, while rainfall is declining. These trends are projected to worsen, and will not be limited to progressive changes such as heat and drought, which makes adapting to climate change ever so more urgent. As the world scales up climate change action, enhanced cooperation, capacity-building and access to financial and technical support will be needed to both adapt and mitigate to climate change. Local communities in Jordan have an array of knowledge when it comes to their needs and priorities but in most cases, they lack insight and capacity to address those needs. Currently, the weakness of the civil society and (specially women CBOs) in these governorates means that capacity to build climate change resilience and reverse development traps is limited. It is found that while stakeholders were aware that their climate was changing and that access to water was increasingly scarce, they had little insight into the practical measures they could take to promote resilience. This project has targeted and worked on several aspects to tackle those gaps and deficits. One important aspect that the project worked on is addressing the weak capacity of community- based organisations (CBOs) and local authorities in terms of forging adaptive policies. An increase has resulted in enhancement of capacities of the civil society to better integrate gender and climate change. Studies have shown that women disproportionately suffer from the impacts of climate change because of cultural norms and the distribution of roles, resources, and power, especially in developing countries. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) -both non-government policy organizations and assistance-driven communitybased organizations- adopted evidence-based methods of combating poverty and vulnerability, and learnt technical skills to develop and implement climate change adaptation programs that focus on both women and men roles in the society. The project also presented different platforms to collaborate and develop collective strategies to augment their reach, impact and policy influence, informed by a collective understanding of key issues. The broad-reaching, comprehensive and sustained capacity building was the core of the project. One of the most important key breakthroughs will only be remedied when government and municipalities in these governorates, sees a strong and influential civil society sector which advocate for their rights and consult with all stakeholders of the society including youth. To counter these trends, Civil society and youth will be seen as a tool to augment government imperatives pertaining to poverty reduction and climate change adaptation.