Climate action incomplete without women’s contribution
Judy Wangari is one of an estimated 800,000 smallholder potato farmers who, according to the National Potato Council of Kenya, contribute at least 83 percent of the total potato production.
In a good season, her two acres in Molo in Kenya's Rift Valley region produce between 60 kg and 80 kg bags of potato per acre. Due to drastic and erratic weather patterns, Wangari says that a good season is often not guaranteed.
"The rains come too early or too late. Two years after I started potato farming back in 2018, I lost all my potatoes to heavy rainfall," she says.
Women make up 75 percent of the agricultural labour force in this East African nation.
Overall, women also manage approximately 40 percent of the smallholder farms. As pillars of food production and largely lacking in financial and technical support, women are increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change and consequent land degradation.
"We may be in the same storm, but we are definitely not in the same boat. Nowhere is this truer than for women in the face of climate change," says Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.
A Commonwealth report titled Gender Integration for Climate Action: A Review of Commonwealth Member Country Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), presented at the recent UN climate summit COP26, shows how underrepresentation of women in climate policies and plans, poor access to climate finance, technologies, and lack of capacity for effective decision-making compound inequality.
The lack of representation also creates a barrier to women fully contributing to climate action, reinforcing the circle, and continuing vulnerability.
However, the report also showed that countries are increasingly acknowledging the vulnerability and inequality of women in climate action, taking concrete steps to address it.
At the heart of the review is a macro-level overview of the extent of gender integration in NDCs—the technical term for national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement—in Commonwealth member countries.
Overall, 65 percent of Commonwealth countries included gender as a cross-cutting or mainstreaming priority in new or updated NDCs.
Countries have also identified challenges, particularly in finance, where international support is urgently needed.
The role of women in smart agriculture practices, including agro-processing, is now embraced all across the small island nation of Saint Lucia. While not the main economic stay, agriculture contributes significantly to the country's revenue.
"Noteworthy, women have assumed entrepreneurial roles over regular farming skills, in women-only farming groups. Consequently, as entrepreneurs, women can actively influence the strategic decision-making requirements necessary for the agriculture sector to become more climate-resilient," says the country's Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer, Annette Rattigan-Leo.
Experts such as Aina-Maria Iteta, head of Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Environmental Investment Fund in Namibia, are quick to point out that even though the review finds considerable progress towards gender representation in policies, plans and strategies, additional financial and technical support is needed.
"There is a gap in the budgeting of climate action on gender, overall. Gender initiatives or actions are always planned and funded on an ad hoc basis making it difficult to ensure this goal of gender mainstreaming in climate action is achieved," Iteta says. "The Commonwealth can facilitate access to financing gender climate-action initiatives."
"Capacity-building specific to strategic gender budget approaches is an area that can benefit from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub's expertise. With the country's existing financial constraints, especially in the face of Covid-19 related recovery efforts, it would help to determine the best entry points," Rattigan-Leo says.
For local farmers such as Wangari, the help cannot come soon enough because they continue to struggle to survive and provide for their families on the front lines of climate change.
"If we do not tackle climate change with sufficient urgency and success, those on the wrong end of inequalities, especially women, will bear the hardest burden," Secretary-General Scotland concluded.
Joyce Chimbi is a Kenya-based journalist who focuses on climate change, gender and health. Copyright: Inter Press Service
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