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Saturday, April 18, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Women & Climate Change
Women Warriors Take Environmental Protection into Their Own Hands
Aleta Baun, an Indonesian environmental activist known in her community as Mama Aleta, has a penchant for wearing a colourful scarf on her head, but not for cosmetic reasons.
Mexico’s Climate Laws Ignore Women
The rural communities of San Miguel and Santo Tomás Ajusco, to the south of Mexico City, are preserving 3,000 of their 7,619 hectares of forest in exchange for payment for environmental services. But the inequality in the communities is far from ecological.
Rural Costa Rican Women Plant Trees to Fight Climate Change
Olga Vargas, a breast cancer survivor, is back in the countryside, working in a forestry programme in the north of Costa Rica aimed at empowering women while at the same time mitigating the effects of climate change.
A Honduran Paradise that Doesn’t Want to Anger the Sea Again
At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.
Sun Shines on Forest Women
Chintapakka Jambulamma, 34, looks admiringly at a solar dryer. It’s the prized possession of the Advitalli Tribal Women’s Co-operative Society- a collective of women entrepreneurs that she leads.
Gender Counts in the Aftermath of Disaster
The rise in natural disasters in the Caribbean due to climate change has led to increased suffering for both men and women, much of it as a consequence of socially constructed roles based on gender, experts say.Women Advance in Distant Islands
Women’s political representation in the Pacific Islands region is globally the lowest at 3.65 percent, compared to the world average of 18 percent. Leadership is still widely perceived as ‘men’s business’ and voting is heavily influenced by nepotism and money politics. However, Rhoda Sikilabu, minister for community affairs in Isabel Province in the Solomon Islands is demonstrating that women leaders can drive development progress and win voter support.
Driving Home the Link Between Gender and Climate Change
Tuesday was Gender Day at the COP19 climate summit in Warsaw, and many of the events that took place in the National Stadium focused on the topic of gender and its relation with climate change, and tried to shed a light on problems that require action from policy-makers.
Women Find a Green Midas Touch
On a hot and humid day in northwestern Bangladesh, Anisa Begum sits with a group of 25 homemakers, explaining how to use natural fertilisers to increase grain yield.
Technology and Innovation Aim at Greater Food Security
In the face of global climate change and currency devaluation, improved strategies are being used to combat high international poverty and malnutrition rates, and to increase global food security.
Women’s Time Has Come
Closing the gender gap between women and men on agriculture and food security could free over one hundred million people from hunger.
Digging Deep for New Conflict
If Herod the Great was a controversial figure of his time, 2,000 years on the controversy isn’t about his legacy; it’s about who holds the rights to excavate and preserve his artefacts.
Women Fight Climate Battles
From Zimbabwe to El Salvador, women in poor countries suffer the brunt of climate change, but also learn to recover from disasters, to adapt and even to find opportunities in the new weather conditions.
Taking the Knowledge of Doha Back to Kenya’s Rural Communities
The skyscraper Qatari capital city of Doha is a far cry from Cecilia Kibe’s home in Turkana district, a remote area in Kenya inhabited by mostly nomadic communities and pastoralists hit hard by the effects of climate change.
Women Hit Hard by Natural Disasters
In the aftermath of a natural disaster, women are often the most vulnerable. Particularly in rural areas, women suffer disproportionately from inadequate shelter and poor sanitation facilities and are often tasked with rebuilding shattered homes.
Q&A: Disaster Resilience Starts with Grassroots Women
Women and girls can be powerful agents of change, but they are disproportionately affected by disasters because of social roles, discrimination and poverty.
Malawi’s Heroines of the Floods
For many women in Malawi’s disaster-prone southern district of Nsanje, resilience is essential to survive the cyclical flooding.
Rural Women in Peru Cope “Where Life Is Very Sad”
When the crops in her rural highlands community in southern Peru were covered with a thick layer of ice one night, Felícitas Quispe, 43, organised her neighbours to make an effort to keep people from starving to death.
U.N. Chief Fires Up Private Investment for Global Energy Solutions
Following a lukewarm outcome of the Rio+20 sustainable development negotiations in June, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is moving full-steam ahead on a new initiative aimed at leveraging public-private partnerships to bring modern energy to over one billion people by 2030.
Men and Women Farming Together Can Eradicate Hunger
Three years ago, the residents of the semi-arid Yatta district in Kenya’s Eastern Province lived on food aid due to dwindling crops of maize that could not thrive because of the decreased rainfall in the area. That was until a local bishop, trying to find ways to prevent mothers from forcing their teenage daughters into prostitution, changed everything.
Farming Among the Waste in Cameroon
Cameroonian urban famer Juliana Numfor has six plots of land where she grows maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and leafy vegetables, including cabbages, wild okra and greens.« Previous Page — Next Page »
For rural women in developing countries — the majority of the world’s farmers — global warming means harder work and diminishing returns. Drought, heat, floods, storms and forced migration disrupt harvest cycles and deny women and their families secure livelihoods. By improvising, organising and innovating, women are providing effective responses to the challenges imposed by climate change. They are at the forefront of sustainable farming, water harvesting, forest protection and the development of new skills and sources of income. Yet women from developing countries still play a minor role in the climate change debate. Why aren't their ideas, initiatives and experiences shaping national and international policy? This series of independent articles contributes to this discussion.
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
