Under the five-year enhanced Lima work programme on gender, the UNFCCC Secretariat organized a workshop on gender integration into national climate policies, plans, strategies and actions. The aim of this workshop was to share examples and lessons learned about the results, impacts and main challenges of gender integration into national climate policies, plans, strategies and actions. The workshop was organized in cooperation with the national focal points for gender and climate change and other relevant organizations, where R. N. Macedonia was one of the five countries that presented their experience in terms of gender mainstreaming into national climate policies.

The State Counselor from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, Ms. Elena Grozdanova, who is also a focal point for gender and climate change, was invited to speak about the experience of the Republic of North Macedonia in using gender-divided data and analysis to support climate policies. At the beginning of her presentation, she emphasized that the policy of gender equality and the empowerment of women is one of the fundamental principles of democracy and the social order of the country. She stressed that although climate change affects both women and men, due to different positions in society, the consequences of climate change can have different effects, with women being much more affected by these changes.

During her presentation, Ms. Elena presented the example of household heating in Skopje, focusing on seven vulnerable categories of citizens. Through this example, participants were able to see the power of data. Until recently, the Government of R. N. Macedonia granted subsidies for the replacement of inefficient heating devices, with the method of "first come first served", which did not take into account the vulnerable categories of citizens. With this new approach, the subsidy criteria have been redesigned to support the 10,000 most vulnerable households. You can read more about the heating problem here.

Furthermore, Ms. Elena Grozdanova presented the activities undertaken to ensure sustainability and effective implementation. Some of them are:

• Shifting focus from central to local level. A database of people working in the field of gender equality and climate change at the administrative level has been created, consisting of 319 representatives at local and national level, of which 61% are women.

• Gender indicators for GHG inventory, mitigation, vulnerability and adaptation assessment, monitoring of climate action implementation, etc. have been developed.

• Budget allocation for policy implementation has been made - the strategic area “Gender and Climate Change” from the Gender Equality Strategy will have to be fiscally defined.

• In cooperation with UNDP and the Global Support Programme, a Climate change unit was established in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.

• Innovative tools have been developed to hear the voices of both men and women in the revised policies.

This workshop was organized by the UNFCCC in cooperation with UN Women and UNDP. If you want to know more about the event, you can do so here. The full presentation of Ms. Elena Grozdanova on the experiences of our country in integrating gender into climate policy and vice versa can be viewed here, while the video from the webinar can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ffbx4Jedk&feature=youtu.be