CEDAW/C/GC/37 provide for the full and effective participation of women can advance substantive gender equality and the empowerment of women, while ensuring that sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change objectives are achieved. 12 It should be underlined that gender equality is a precondition for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. 8. In the light of the significant challenges in, and opportunities for, the realization of women’s human rights presented by climate change and disaster risk, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has provided specific guidance for States parties on the implementation of their obligations relating to disaster risk reduction and climate change under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In its concluding observations on the reports of States parties and in several of its general recommendations, the Committee has underlined that States parties and other stakeholders have obligations to take specific steps to address discrimination against women in the fields of disaster risk reduction and climate change, through the adoption of targeted laws, policies, mitigation and adaptation strategies, budgets and other measures. 13 In its statement on gender and climate change, the Committee outlined that all stakeholders should ensure that climate change and disaster risk reduction measures were gender responsive and sensitive to indigenous knowledge systems and that they respected human rights. The right of women to participate at all levels of decision -making must be guaranteed in climate change policies and programmes ( A/65/38, part one, annex II). 9. The Committee notes that other United Nations human rights mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council and the special procedures mandate holders, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, refer with increasing frequency to the negative consequences of climate change, environmental degradation and disasters. Those mechanisms have also affirmed the obligations of Governments and other stakeholders to take immediate, targeted steps to prevent and mitigate the negative human rights impacts of climate change and disasters and to provide technical and financial support for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures. II. Objective and scope 10. Pursuant to article 21 (1) of the Convention, the present general recommendation provides guidance to States parties on the implementation of their obligations under the Convention in relation to disaster risk reduction and climate change. In their reports submitted to the Committee pursuant to article 18, States parties should address general obligations to ensure substantive equality between __________________ 12 13 4/24 Senay Habtezion, “Gender and disaster risk reduction”, Gender and Climate Change Asia and the Pacific Policy Brief, No. 3 (New York, UNDP, 2013); World Health Organiza tion (WHO), “Gender, climate change and health” (Geneva, 2010). For concluding observations, see CEDAW/C/SLB/CO/1–3, paras. 40–41; CEDAW/C/PER/CO/7–8, paras. 37–38; CEDAW/C/GIN/CO/7–8, para. 53; CEDAW/C/GRD/CO/1–5, paras. 35–36; CEDAW/C/JAM/CO/6–7, paras. 31–32; CEDAW/C/SYC/CO/1–5, paras. 36–37; CEDAW/C/TGO/CO/6–7, para. 17; CEDAW/C/DZA/CO/3–4, paras. 42–43; CEDAW/C/NLZ/CO/7, paras. 9 and 36–37; CEDAW/C/CHI/CO/5–6, paras. 38–39; CEDAW/C/BLR/CO/7, paras. 37–38; CEDAW/C/LKA/CO/7, paras. 38–39; CEDAW/C/NPL/CO/4–5, para. 38; and CEDAW/C/TUV/CO/2, paras. 55–56. See also general recommendation No. 27 (2010) on older women and the protection of their human rights, para. 25, and general recommendation No. 28 (2010) on the core obligations of States parties under article 2 of the Convention, para. 11. 18-03824