This brief seeks to unpack why, where and how gender analysis fits into the community-based adaptation process, providing a rational for its importance and pointing to key resources. It seeks to demystify the challenge by breaking the process of “integrating gender” into a set of three key practices, which inform community-based adaptation (CBA) planning and decision making through different ways. The brief describes a process and steps for gender analysis that apply to whichever practices are most useful to a project or programme. It seeks to motivate readers to make better efforts to understand and respond to gender dynamics, as an essential element of local climate change adaptation planning.