Your air-con breaks down and you call for a technician but to your surprise, a female technician shows up at your doorstep with her toolbox!   This is becoming a common practice in Zambia! Meet Sarah Nakanyika a female Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning (RAC) technician and pioneer of women-empowerment in the RAC sector in Zambia.

Impacts of female leadership

Au Bénin, l’abandon progressif des substances appauvrissant la couche d’ozone a non seulement contribué à protéger la couche d’ozone pour les générations actuelles et futures mais a aussi renforcé la communauté internationale dans sa lutte contre les changements climatiques.

Today, on the occasion of International Women's Day (IWD), UNEP OzonAction would like to express our best wishes and sincere thanks to all our female colleagues working in National Ozone Units for your leadership, outstanding dedication, great intellectual input, and tireless work on the Montreal Protocol! This treaty is often referred to as the most successful multilateral environmental agreement to date, and both women and men take equal credit in making this amazing achievement possible.

Dubai, UAE, 4 December 2023 − In a groundbreaking event during the COP-28 from the Montreal Protocol Pavilion entitled "You can't be what you can't see – What can INWIC do for Women in Cooling", several Montreal Protocol partners and stakeholders gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities for women in the Refrigeration, Air-Conditioning, and Heat-pumps (RACHP) industry.

This meeting is part of the activities of UNEP OzonAction's Regional Montreal Protocol Network for Europe and Central Asia (ECA network). Simultaneous English – Russian interpretation will be provided.

The meeting will focus on KIP preparation and related ExCom decisions including that related to gender mainstreaming in Montreal Protocol projects. We will encourage the exchange of views / experience between participants.

Dear National Ozone Officers,

On behalf of UNEP OzonAction Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP), I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY  and to especially thank our female National Ozone Officers (NOOs) and national stakeholders for their tremendous and continuing contributions to the implementation and compliance with the Montreal Protocol.

Thank you for all that you are doing for the Montreal Protocol, for our planet and for future generations!

Taking into account that women and girls constitute half of the world’s population and, therefore, represent half of the potential and innovation necessary to face the “triple planetary crisis” — climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste — positioning people and the planet as central pillars of the transformation necessary to overcome it, and considering the guiding principles and the scopes of action of the Operational Policy on Gender Mainstreaming of the Multilateral Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme (Latin America and the Caribbean Office), as an implementing agency, has prepared this publication contextualizing the international legal framework and the instruments available regarding rights, gender and equality aspects, in order to give visibility to the actions, good practices and progress achieved in a non-exhaustive group of countries of the region. We are convinced that they will serve as an inspiring guide and model for other countries for the integration of gender perspective into their national programs and projects. At the end of this publication, is included a section with action principles and tools for the institutional, operational and communication areas, and a series of complementary resources and relevant references to support your efforts in the implementation of policies on gender mainstreaming in your countries.