Public actors need to monitor the state of the environment in order to assess the effectiveness of their actions, prioritize policies and management measures, and thus objectively establish their contribution to the conservation of natural capital. To do so, they must be able to rely on scientific standards enabling them to define the thresholds from which environmental functions can be considered sustainable.

The ESGAP (Environmental Sustainability Gap) is an innovative tool that assesses the state of a territory’s environmental functions and their level of sustainability. For all critical components of natural capital in the territory concerned (air or water quality, pollution, forest resources, fisheries, etc.), this indicator calculates the difference between their current state and a state that would be sustainable (that is, a state compatible with a sustainable functioning of the processes necessary for the preservation of life, human activities and well-being). This allows the calculation of an “environmental sustainability gap”, which highlights the path that remains to reach the stage of environmental sustainability. This can then serve as a guide for public policy to estimate and preserve the natural state of a given territory.

Within the framework of the ECOPRONAT research program, AFD wishes to develop methodologies for assessing strong sustainability, that is to say adopting demanding criteria concerning the non-substitutability of natural capital by other forms of capital (physical and other) in a territory or country. AFD would also like to promote their use in international settings and contribute to the emerging international standards on the good ecological status of ecosystems.

 

This project aimed to test the relevance of the ESGAP framework in developing countries, where not all data on natural capital are always available. In collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Paul Ekins' team at University College London (UCL) supported two pilots of this indicator in Vietnam and Kenya.

These pilots were carried out by teams of experts both from national research institutes responsible for monitoring and reporting environmental data: the Kenya National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) and the Institute of Strategy, Policy on Natural Resources and Environment (ISPONRE) in Vietnam. This work enables better integration of strong environmental sustainability principles into global environmental assessments.

These pilots also sought to better document the challenges of strong environmental sustainability in the series of Measuring Progress reports published by UNEP.

 

The ESGAP framework is based on a dashboard that provides information on changes in the functional state of 23 components of the environment, focusing on the differences between these changes and the objectives of maintaining or achieving “good ecological status”. These components cover the four main categories of critical and essential environmental functions: the provision of resources, the reprocessing of pollution, biodiversity and human health. The scores of the 23 components are then aggregated to form a synthetic indicator and a dynamic indicator. 

The two pilots revealed the general lack of standards for maintaining biodiversity in both countries, as well as significant gaps in environmental regulation, both in Kenya and Vietnam. The lack of historical reference points to measure the good state of the environment is a serious obstacle to the establishment of protection policies and prevents the debate on narratives and development trajectories respectful of the natural heritage.

Moreover, the analysis shows a worrying situation in both Kenya and Vietnam about pollution of natural environments, despite the very limited availability of data on these issues. In Kenya, the results are rather good on natural resources, but many essential and critical contributions of natural capital to human well-being and health are greatly degraded, both for water and air quality, as well as for access to natural amenities. In Vietnam, fish resources, soil erosion, and air and water pollution appear to be the most degraded dimensions.

According to ISPONRE and NEMA, the ESGAP framework has great potential as a tool for communicating the state of a territory and for monitoring public policies in both countries. It offers a framework for broadening the range of topics covered by public policies and proposes a high-quality standard for the establishment of environmental sustainability assessment frameworks.

This research project also supported a flagship UNEP report on the environmental content of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Measuring Progress: Environment and the SDGs, which incorporates the lessons learned from these two ESGAP pilots. This has shown that, of the 231 SDG monitoring indicators, 77 can be linked to an environmental theme from near or far, but that only 11 of them really describe the state of the environment.

Download the reports: 

• Environmental Sustainability in Kenya: A Case Study in the ESGAP and SESI (June 2022)
• Environmental Sustainability in Vietnam: A Case Study in the ESGAP and SESI (June 2022)

Initial feedback indicates that the ESGAP pilots need to be backed up by real capacity-building exercises of the administrations in charge of environmental monitoring and natural capital management, in order to hope to improve environmental diagnostics in the long term.

The concepts of “scientific standards” and “diagnosis of the state of natural capital contributions” also need to be refined, explained and adapted to the available contexts and data: if, ideally, these standards are derived from international frameworks and legitimated at the national level, often alternative indicators must be used to adapt the standards to different contexts.

These lessons complement those from a pilot of the ESGAP indicator, led by AFD and WWF in New Caledonia. Following another ECOPRONAT call for projects, two more ESGAP studies are underway:

• A first study aims to develop indicators for biodiversity and the health of natural ecosystems, as well as an ESGAP methodology in South Africa and Colombia.
• A second study aims to refine socio-economic indicators and study the relationship between the economy and the environment, with Vietnam as a case study.

Contact: 

• Oskar Lecuyer, research officer at AFD

Since the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987, which introduced the three pillars of sustainable development, to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the development community has become increasingly concerned with rising inequalities—whether geographical (North/South), social (rich/poor), demographic (present/future generations), anthropological (men/women), or environmental.

Today, development actors are emphasizing the urgency and legitimacy of a new approach that explicitly links reducing inequalities—particularly gender inequalities (SDG 5)—with combating climate change (SDG 13). Since 2015, multilateral, regional, and bilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, civil society organizations, the media, and academia have reflected this commitment in their strategies, discourse, and actions, including funding, advocacy, and research.

The French law of August 4, 2021 (No. 2021-1031), unanimously adopted, establishes the fight against poverty and the preservation of global public goods—including health, climate, biodiversity, education, and gender equality—as key priorities of development policy. At AFD level, this commitment is reflected in its '100% Social Link and 100% Paris Agreement commitments.

It is therefore worth examining how different actors conceptualize and integrate the gender equality and climate agendas, each with its own dynamics and characteristics, to identify the main narratives shaping their approach.

The main objective was to identify and analyze the institutional discourses linking climate change and gender equality, as presented by various development aid actors. These include transnational organizations (such as the European Union), international bodies (UN agencies), multilateral and bilateral development donors and agencies, civil society organizations, and epistemic communities like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

This research project, commissioned by the Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (OFCE), aimed to:

• Map relevant institutions and themes,
• Analyze these discourses,
• Examine the cognitive and discursive frameworks and their evolution over the past decade,
• Provide insight into AFD’s positioning at the intersection of these issues.

The PRESAGE laboratory (OFCE/Sciences Po Paris) was tasked with analyzing the discourse of various actors across a broad range of documentary sources. A total of 800 documents in French, English, and Spanish, produced by 54 organizations, were filtered using 150 keywords and semantic fields related to climate change mitigation and gender equality to gain deeper insights into their framing.

To achieve this, the research team employed Critical Frame Analysis (CFA), the most advanced methodology for analyzing public policy discourse on gender equality and its dissemination. CFA combines cognitive, discursive, and sociological analysis to examine how public policies are framed, revealing different interpretations and logics surrounding gender equality, climate change mitigation, and their intersections.

The research led to the production of:

• A state-of-the-art review outlining the historical and discursive foundations of the interpretative frameworks used to link gender and climate issues.
• A mapping of key actors, including the reference texts they rely on.
• An analysis of the discourses connecting gender equality and climate change.

The project culminated in the publication of a research paper detailing the research partners, methodology, analyzed materials (including speeches, narratives, strategies, activity reports, and brochures), and recommendations for effectively integrating gender and climate considerations into development policies.

Additionally, the study contributed to academic literature through a second publication in the A question of development collection and an opinion piece in The Conversation France. The findings also provide valuable insights into AFD’s strategies and those of other stakeholders in advancing inclusive and equitable climate action.

Download the publications:

• “Quels cadres interprétatifs autour des enjeux genre et climat : enseignements d'une analyse bibliométrique” (Research Papers No. 255, Éditions Agence Française de Développement, July 2022)
• “How do international organizations address the articulation between gender and climate?” (A question of developpment No. 54, Éditions Agence Française de Développement, April 2022)

Read also: When gender and climate go hand in hand, new prospects for development

Eight key narratives emerged, reflecting different perspectives on the link between gender and climate:

• The vulnerability prism – framing gender and climate through the lens of vulnerability, particularly in emergency climate action.
• The smart economics approach – positioning gender inclusion as an economic opportunity to advance the climate agenda.
• Integration tools – developing mechanisms to embed gender equality into climate policies and strategies.
• Women and girls as agents of adaptation – emphasizing their empowerment as a key factor in climate resilience.
• Gender mainstreaming for transformative action – advocating for systemic gender integration to drive meaningful climate solutions.
• Intersectionality of inequality and discrimination – recognizing how multiple forms of discrimination shape the gender-climate nexus.
• The eco-feminist perspective – portraying women as stewards of nature and protectors of the environment.
• Decolonizing gender and climate action – challenging dominant frameworks and advocating for inclusive, context-specific approaches.

These frameworks have been structured based on their frequency of use, the categories of actors adopting them, and their evolution over time:

• Some are well-established, while others are still emerging.
• Their adoption varies both across and within different actor categories.
• They reflect differing levels of ambition for change, ranging from adaptive to transformative approaches.
• They are not fixed and can be combined or adapted over time.

Each narrative highlights distinct—sometimes even divergent—political, economic, and social priorities. They all have their strengths and limitations.

This work aims to inform AFD’s strategic reflections and, more broadly, contribute to the ongoing discussions among key development actors on how to integrate these two critical themes more effectively.

Contacts:

• Hélène Périvier, economist and director of the Programme de recherche et d'enseignement des savoirs sur le genre (PRESAGE) of the OFCE-Sciences Po
• Maxime Forest, political scientist, research associate at the OFCE and lecturer at Sciences Po
• Serge Rabier, research officer at AFD