·      MNE’s have the ability through their policies and practice to foster gender equality in the workplace in the developing countries that host them. This means these firms can promote gender equality in developing countries through employment through practices in the foreign locations and indirectly via spill overs in local labour markets. 

·      Studies in Bangladesh reports that downstream business partners of MNEs in relation to textile and garment industry have 50% more female administrative employees than other local enterprises, while domestic firms sharing suppliers with MNE’s that hire more women. 

·      This has been indictive depending on the values of the customer & stakeholder base within those developing areas that the outcome can be positive. 

·      Ensuring the inclusion of women’s’ talents and experiences in sustainable development efforts requires the actions of all stakeholders such as policymakers, civil society and the business sector. 

 

·      There has been evidence shown within UNCTAD that gender practices’ have indirect spill over effects on local firms and labour markets. 

 

·      It states the importance of active enforcement of gender equality – by the promotion of equal access to training, provision of maternity leave without repercussions and the avoidance of unfair dismissals. These are inherently necessary to translate global policies across societal and cultural differences. 

 

·      Policies in both home and host countries of MNE’s are key to promoting gender equality, with inherent focus that host-country policies and programmes aimed at strengthening local absorptive capacity and developing inclusive linkages. 

 

·      There has been reports on progress in over 70% in the largest MNE’s in this areas , but women’s representation remains unequal due to the poor representation of women in managerial work and the additional lack of implementation of gender equality policies in relation to flexibility of working hours and childcare. 

 

·      The report is indicative of the importance of including gender equality objectives in trade and investment agreement. 

 

·      Gender wage gaps remains a paramount issue at the centre of achieving gender equality. MNC’s play a monumental role in setting pay and diminishing this pay disparity. Women working for MNC’s in developing countries are paid more poorly in comparison to domestic firms. 

 

·      Melinda Gates opinion is that to make an impact, focus should be on the barriers faced by women at work and the responsibility of businesses for realizing gender equality, with huge importance placed on the gender wage gap. 

 

·      Currently women are earning on average 20% less than men for equally valuable work. Despite variations worldwide, the gender wage gap ranges from 3% in Luxembourg to 37% in South Korea, with not a single country having achieving income equality. 

 

·      Closing the wage gap is crucial for the achievement of gender equality, with firms playing a gargantuan role in achieving this, as the ones providing employment, they directly determine hiring and promotion polices – as well as pay differences. 

 

·      MNC’s have been inherently scrutinised for the impact they have on local economies recently, there have been studies done questioning if women are better off working for multinationals in relation to wages – this has come to show that the gender wage gap is smaller in multinationals than in domestic firms, but exclusively in developed countries. There is larger wage disparity in multinationals in developing countries.

 

·      Within developing countries multinationals are found to be associated with an even larger gender wage gap than domestic firms. This could be due to the cultural based perception of the role of women in the family and society and how they differentiate across countries. For example, women may have expectations of being the care-taker, or experience limitations in travelling internationally which plays a substantial role in working for multinationals. 

 

·      Thus, while it has been proved multinationals has reduced the wage gap between men and women within developed countries, this study has called that multinationals in fact contribute to widening instead of reducing the gender wage gap in developing countries. Multinationals have a decisive role to play here by tackling the gender disparity in both developing and developed countries. 

-During extreme weather such as droughts and floods, women tend to work more to secure household livelihoods. This will leave less time for women to access training and education, develop skills or earn income. In Africa, female illiteracy rates were over 55 per cent in 2000, compared to 41 per cent for men.⁴ When coupled with inaccessibility to resources and decision-making processes, limited mobility places women where they are disproportionately affected by climate change.

-In many societies, socio-cultural norms and childcare responsibilities prevent women from migrating or seeking refuge in other places or working when a disaster hits. 

-Climate change will be an added stressor that will aggravate women's vulnerability. It is widely known that during conflict, women face heightened domestic violence, sexual intimidation, human trafficking and rape.

-For a long time women have historically developed knowledge and skills related to water harvesting and storage, food preservation and rationing, and natural resource management. In Africa, for example, old women represent wisdom pools with their inherited knowledge and expertise related to early warnings and mitigating the impacts of disasters. This knowledge and experience that has passed from one generation to another will be able to contribute effectively to enhancing local adaptive capacity and sustaining a community's livelihood.

-Women's priorities and needs must be reflected in the development planning and funding. Women should be part of the decision making at national and local levels regarding allocation of resources for climate change initiatives. It is also important to ensure gender-sensitive investments in programmes for adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer and capacity building. Funding organizations and donors should also take into account women-specific circumstances when developing and introducing technologies related to climate change adaptation and to try their best to remove the economic, social and cultural barriers that could constraint women from benefiting and making use of them.

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