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Part of: Social Equity Considerations for Cities’ Decision Making Related to Inner, Nearby, and Faraway Forests

Definitions

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Social Equity Considerations for Cities’ Decision Making Related to Inner, Nearby, and Faraway Forests Definitions

Caste: A complex form of stratified social hierarchy, often referring to a system of social stratification in Hindu India (adapted from the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology)
Class: Social groups’ standard of living as defined by their household income, wealth, and consumption in terms of nutrition, education, and health services, language proficiency, etc. (adapted from ILO). Sub-categories may include upper/elite class, middle class, and working class. People’s socioeconomic status is a reflection of what they can or can’t do based on their class.
Gender: The social attributes and opportunities associated with expressing as male, female, or non-binary and the relationships between and among them, in conjunction with other characteristics such as age, race, class, and/or other expressions of identity. These attributes, opportunities, and relationships are socially constructed, and can change over context and time. (adapted from UN Women) Depending on the context, information on “sex” may be used to collect information on gender outcomes. For instance, “sex-disaggregated data” analyzed with other demographic variables and socioeconomic variables and socioeconomic indicators may identify gender gaps and patterns of social disparities.
Implicit biases: Having a preference for, or aversion to, a person or group of people, or associating sterotypes with them without conscious knowledge. (Adapted from the Perception Institute)
Inclusive: The multi-dimensional process of improving the terms of full and active participation in civic, social, economic, and political activities. Social inclusion also includes improving the terms of participation in decision-making processes for all people, especially those who are disadvantaged on the basis of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, or economic or other status, through enhanced opportunities, access to resources, voice and respect for rights. Thus, social inclusion is both a process and a goal (adapted from UNDESA).
Nature-based solutions: Actions to protest, sustainable manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, which address societal challenges (e.g. climate change, food and water security, or natural disasters) effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits (IUCN).
Social analyses: A process designed to identify the social dimensions of projects and policies by analyzing stakeholders’ perspectives. It asks: Who is likely to benefit from the decisions? Who may be adversely impacted? How and why are these groups going to be positively or negatively impacted?
Social equity: The absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically. (WHO) Equitable processes call for acknowledging that individuals or groups may have unequal starting points and require different levels of support based on their specific needs to achieve fairness in outcomes. (Center for the Study of Social Policy)
Socially accommodating: Approaches that work around social differences, norms and inequities, and meet people where they are to achieve project outcomes. They do not attempt to reduce the social differences, but also do not exploit or exacerbate them. (USAID)
Socially blind: Approaches that do not see social equity as something important to consider; assumes that if something works for one group, it will work for everyone. (USAID)
Socially exploitative: Approaches that take advantage of existing inequalities, behaviors, and sterotypes in pursuit of project objectives. They reinforce unequal power in the relations between men and women or other social groups and potentially deepen existing inequalities. (USAID)
Socially transformative: Approaches that explicitly engage all social groups to examine, question, and change institutions and norms that reinforce inequalities, and as a result achieve greater social equity through project objectives. (USAID)

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