A/HRC/42/26 IV. Recommendations 56. During the discussion, speakers made a number of recommendations. Generally, they called for a gender-responsive, rights-based approach to climate action and emphasized the need to recognize the role of women as agents of change. They recommended that the full, equal and meaningful participation of all women in decision-making on climate change be made a priority. They recognized that women’s environmental knowledge and skills were crucial to successful climate action and should inform and guide climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. 57. Efforts should be made to implement fully the commitments of States to rightsbased, gender-responsive climate action, including in existing international conventions, frameworks and agendas. Specific references were made to relevant commitments made in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, general recommendation No. 37 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the gender-responsive environmental action and training initiative of the Group of 7 and the G20 Charter for Engagement. Speakers recommended focusing on synergies between these instruments, in order to facilitate the elaboration of tools, including plans of action, for the implementation of gender-responsive, rights-based climate action at the national level, ultimately leading to more effective climate action that benefited both people and the planet. 58. Since small island States were particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, a gender-responsive approach should be applied in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national environmental policies to address the negative effects of climate change, both within those countries and elsewhere. Collection of disaggregated data and gender-based assessments of climate projects and programmes was recommended to inform and guide climate policymaking. 59. Speakers called for increased international cooperation and assistance in order to build the resilience and adaptive capacities of women and girls, including through strengthened cooperation on gender mainstreaming in disaster management plans and policies. International climate financing mechanisms were encouraged to prioritize funding climate change projects that were gender-responsive and would empower women. 60. Women’s access to modern technology should be enhanced as part of the efforts to increase their empowerment. Speakers called for the integration of gender perspectives in climate-smart agriculture initiatives, climate-smart urban development and disaster preparedness. In the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work, the International Labour Conference had called for a transformative agenda for gender equality, providing a basis for ensuring respect for women’s rights as part of a just transition. 61. Practical steps to promote the full participation of women and girls in public life and decision-making in the context of climate change should include taking measures to provide awareness-raising and capacity-building training opportunities and courses. Illustrative practices included the course offered by the University of the West Indies and the efforts undertaken by Australia to train women negotiators in the Pacific; such initiatives should be multiplied. 62. States were called upon to intensify their efforts to translate international climate policies into national policies. Governments should adopt and implement gender-responsive domestic climate policies in order to achieve increased policy coherence. There was also a need to better link the work of the Human Rights Council on climate change with other relevant United Nations processes. The Security Council could take a systemic approach in considering climate change as a cause of and a multiplier in conflict situations. 11