Women Must Be Partners and Drivers of Climate Change Decision-Making
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Former Executive Director of UN Women & Deputy President of SA Founder of Umlambo Foundation Gender Activist and Campaigner for Universal Access to Education
As leaders from around the world gather in Lima, Peru this week to discuss global cooperation in addressing climate change, a woman in Guatemala will struggle to feed her family from a farm plot that produces less each season.
A mother in Ethiopia will make the difficult choice to take her daughter out of school to help in the task of gathering water, which requires more and more time with each passing year.
A pregnant woman in Bangladesh will worry about what will happen to her and her children if the floods come when it is her time to deliver.
These women, and millions of women around the world, are on the front lines of climate change. The impacts of shifting temperatures, erratic rainfall, and extreme weather events touch their lives in direct and profound ways. For many, these impacts are felt so strongly because of gender roles – women are responsible for gathering water, food and fuel for the household. And for too many, a lack of access to information and decision-making exacerbates their vulnerability in the face of climate change.
Our leaders in Lima this week will meet to lay the critical foundations for a new global agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They seek to resolve important questions about collective action to reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change, to build resilience in communities to the climate change impacts we can’t avoid, and to provide the finance needed for climate-smart development around the world. It is critical that in all of these efforts, our leaders recognize the importance of ensuring that climate change solutions are gender-responsive.
What does it mean for climate change solutions to be gender-responsive? It means, for example, that in formulating strategies for renewable energy women are engaged in all stages and that these strategies take into consideration how women access and use fuel and electricity in their homes. It means that vulnerability assessments and emergency response plans take into account women’s lives and capabilities. And critically, it means women are included at decision-making tables internationally, nationally, and locally when strategies and action plans are developed.
Going beyond the acknowledgment that men and women are impacted differently by climate change and thus, the need for climate policies and actions to be gender-responsive, we must also examine and support pathways to greater empowerment for women. When women are empowered, their families, communities, and nations benefit. Responding to climate change offers opportunities to enhance pathways to empowerment. This requires addressing the underlying root causes such as gender stereotypes and social norms that perpetuate and compound inequality and discrimination. Examples abound and these include removing restrictions to women’s mobility, providing full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensuring access to education and employment opportunities as well as access to economic resources, such as land and financial services.
Enhancing women’s agency is key to a human rights-based and equitable climate change agenda. In September during the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York, UN Women and the Mary Robinson Foundation--Climate Justice brought together more than 130 women leaders for a forum on “Women Leading the Way: Raising Ambition for Climate Action.” We heard remarkable stories of women’s leadership in addressing all aspects of the climate crisis.
Women have proven skills in managing natural resources sustainably and adapting to climate change, and are crucial partners in protecting fragile ecosystems and communities that are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Women leaders mobilize communities, promote green investments, and develop energy efficient technologies. Indeed, if we are serious about tackling climate change, our leaders in Lima this week must ensure that women are equal partners and drivers of climate change decision-making.
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Photo credits: UN Photo/Martine Perret
Lecturer at University of the Western Cape
9 年Women across the globe and particularly in Africa, are hard hit by socioeconomic predicaments, which can not only be attributed to climate change. We need to look at how role players are leveling the field, to create an environment more conducive for women to active participants within the climate change discourse. Skills transfer is a critical aspect of that can be utilised to engage women, in all spheres of society to benefit from the developments in technology, that can ease the burden on rural and underprivileged women.
Founding Director, Horizon Learning Link Consulting and Former President, Africa 21 - Geneva-based NGO
9 年No doubt about this generous with political statement. But how do we concretely enforce the "MUST"?
Director of the MSN Program at Clayton State University
9 年Davy, Women in general have increased longevity and as such, gender inequality outcomes negatively impact women more than men. Women end up with family and financial burdens with no support in community institutions.
Part-Time Lecturer at Information and Communications University and University of Africa
9 年Dear Madam, I could not agree more with you. Climate change impacts more negatively on women compared to men socio-economically. Hence the need to work among women.
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9 年As a woman, we maybe weak in some point but we have a heart to change everything. That's the power that we can offer.