Mary Robinson with Elizabeth Wathuti at COP26 in Glasgow. Credit: The Elders

By Mary Robinson
DUBLIN, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

Women are already leaders on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Sisters Nina and Helena Gualinga of the Kichwa Sarayaku community in Ecuador work tirelessly to protect Indigenous land. Archana Soreng from the indigenous Khadia tribe in Odisha, India is a talented climate researcher and advisor to the United Nations Secretary General. Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate is encouraging a whole generation of young people to fight for their right to a safe future. There are thousands of other women and girls working tirelessly to protect our planet whose names I do not know but who deserve to be acknowledged this International Women’s Day too.

Many women and girls working in the fight against climate change have stepped into leadership not out of choice but out of necessity – the brunt of the climate emergency, which amplifies existent inequalities, is often felt hardest by women and girls.

Women’s vulnerability to climate change is social, economic, and cultural. Women in climate vulnerable nations tend to be highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihoods, particularly in rural areas where they shoulder the responsibility for household supplies. However, women must not be seen as passive victims of climate change but as active and effective agents of change.

Women have long been the custodians of the environment in many traditional societies. It is women who are often the providers of food, the stewards of seed banks, and the decision-makers at household level. It is often women who are the early adopters of new techniques and who are frequently the first responders in disaster situations. Our world is also full of remarkable women leading the way as climate scientists, litigators, community organisers, business owners, policy-makers, inventors and more.

While it is important for us to celebrate the vital contributions of women and girls around the world in tackling the climate emergency, we must in turn recognise the gender inequality at the heart of this crisis. The gendered dimensions of climate change and its responses are still insufficiently addressed in either emerging climate finance architecture or in most countries’ strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation.

As exposed in last month’s IPCC report, the threat of climate change reaches across sectors, regions and populations. Tackling it will require all of humanity’s ideas, efforts, and innovations. Ensuring that diverse populations are represented in key decision-making processes is essential if we are to succeed in this colossal task.

We must start to see scaled-up funding for women’s capacity building as well as strengthened efforts to support women and girls to lead on addressing climate change at community, national, and international level.

According to Oxfam, the latest figures show that only 1.5 percent of overseas climate-related development funds named gender equality as their primary objective. Of this, only 0.2 percent was reaching organisations led by women or for women. Things are slowly improving, but there is still a long way to go.

The Elders – the group of independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights that I chair – are calling for more investment for climate vulnerable nations so that millions more women and girls can build resilience to climate and disaster risks. A crucial element of that must be increased financial support for adaptation as well as mitigation.

At COP26 international leaders signed a statement calling for the role of women to be advanced in addressing climate change. This statement remains open for signatures from nation states until the 66th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, to be held later this month: an event that will have a focus on women’s empowerment in the context of climate change, the environment and disaster risk reduction.

Pledges made on gender-just climate action, like the ones made at COP26 and earlier in 2021 at the Generation Equality Forum, are important; but we now need to see those promises transformed into action. Equitable and inclusive decision-making means not only ensuring that women and girls are always at decision-making tables but also that women and girls from particularly marginalised groups such as indigenous and rural communities are there too.

At COP26, there was a lack of female representation across the board when it came to climate discussions – it was too male, pale and stale. COP27 must not look like that.

This International Women’s Day should be the last one where we are left discussing a lack of representation in climate decision making. When women and girls are excluded from informing climate negotiations and implementation processes, it undermines efforts to protect our collective future.

A young climate activist I greatly admire, Elizabeth Wathuti from Kenya, recently said: “I believe in our human capacity to care deeply and act collectively.” Like Elizabeth, I believe in humanity enough to still have hope that we can do what is needed to address the climate crisis – but it will take all of us.

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Credit: UN Women

By Claudia Sadoff
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

The increased empowerment of rural women in Bangladesh over the past 10 years has been no accident.

A decade ago, not even one in four rural women could be said to be “empowered” across five key metrics, a figure that surprised even those working on the ground with the country’s poorest. By 2015, this had risen to more than two in five, or 41 per cent, with continued gains in recent years.

A key reason for this rise was a systematic effort to measure empowerment among rural women in real terms using measurements that were directly related to their daily lives, including farming and fishing.

The findings were a wake-up call that guided and motivated action towards a more targeted approach to improving women’s participation and decision-making in food systems.

The result is not only greater gender equality but subsequent improvements in nutrition, health, and productivity. And while the gender gap was slowly closing, Bangladesh achieved lower-middle-income status, with reductions in extreme poverty, as well as child and maternal mortality.

Clearly, for women around the world, there remains a long way to go. But as Bangladesh has demonstrated, unlocking the multiple benefits that gender equality can bring begins with first quantifying the level of empowerment and gender parity among rural women and their communities. In this case, researchers deployed a pioneering tool, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI).

Bangladesh became the first country to carry out a national household survey that included the WEAI in 2012. One component of the index provided the first measure of women’s empowerment across five key domains: decisions about agricultural production; access to and decision-making power about agricultural resources; control of use of income; leadership in the community, and time allocation.

In addition, another component measured gender parity, or the percentage of women who are empowered or whose achievements are at least as high as the men in their households. This allowed women’s empowerment to become a litmus test for agricultural productivity, nutritional status, and public health.

The publicly available data was instrumental in demonstrating the scale of gender inequality in Bangladesh as well as exposing the variation in empowerment within the country. And this information also enabled the second step, which was to inspire government-backed programs that addressed the mutual links between women, agriculture, and food security.

The Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) program, designed in partnership with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Agriculture, featured agricultural training, nutrition behaviour change communication and gender sensitization trainings in Bangladesh between 2015 and 2018.

Not only did these trainings positively impact women’s empowerment by up to 13 percentage points, but the program also increased the production of crops other than rice and improved the quality of household diets. The ANGeL program has since been rolled out nationwide.

To date, the WEAI has spawned several different versions, some including more extensive metrics and others fewer, to meet the needs of more than 200 organizations in 58 countries.

But applied at a global level, supported by CGIAR, tools like WEAI can provide a common metric that helps design policies to meet multiple goals, from improving diets and childhood development to increasing women’s livelihoods.

If more countries, governments and agencies made use of the WEAI or similar, to guide policy and investment decisions, women’s empowerment could be leveraged as a gateway towards a healthier, more inclusive and fairer world.

When performance is measured, performance improves but when performance can also be directly compared across countries, regions, and different production systems, the result can accelerate progress by inspiring a race to the top. This is why efforts are under way at CGIAR to harmonise different instruments to allow progress worldwide to be monitored and stimulated more widely.

Governments also have a critical role to play in investing in collecting and reporting on empowerment indicators and working alongside development partners to act upon their insights.

The more policymakers and researchers know about the extent of gender inequality and its wider role in the health and prosperity of its population, the more governments, researchers and NGOs can take targeted and effective action that addresses global challenges at their roots.

Women’s empowerment in agriculture leads to greater diversity in food production and household diets, and, in many countries, helps children’s long-term nutritional status. With a consistent approach that first reveals and then reduces the gaps in women’s empowerment, everyone stands to benefit.

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A case worker at a camp for internally displaced people in Somalia helps abused women get medical care. Credit: UNDP

By Caroline Ngonze
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

It was on a visit to Lesotho that I first heard the derogatory term Mmutla – nocturnal hare. It is a word used in some southern districts to insult adolescent girls who have been forced into sexual exploitation and transactional sexual relations for survival.

That one cruel word summed up the multiple marginalisations faced by so many adolescent girls across sub-Saharan Africa: excluded for being poor, for being female, for being young; excluded further through exploitation, and then excluded further as they get blamed for that exploitation.

On our continent, one in four adolescent girls in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from their partner, and over a third of girls are married while still children.

The consequences are seen in the unrelenting young female HIV pandemic. In West and Central Africa, 82% of new HIV infections within the age group 15-19 years are of girls. In the East and Southern Africa region, that figure rises to 85%.

On visits to Lesotho, South Africa, Senegal and Malawi, I’ve heard from the public and private sector, from civil society organizations, from traditional and religious leaders, and teenagers in and out of school, including teenage mothers, the same message: if Africa is to fulfil its potential, it has to enable all of its girls to fulfil theirs. And that depends on all girls completing school and being empowered at school.

Evidence shows that completion of secondary education by adolescent girls can reduce HIV infection by up to 50%. A layered approach to interventions that combines completion of secondary education with universal access to comprehensive sexuality education, fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensuring that school environments are free from gender-based and sexual violence, and successful school-to- work transitions for economic security and empowerment, will lower the risk of HIV infection even further.

Communities concur on the main reasons why so many girls do not complete secondary school. The cost of education is cited as a key barrier everywhere I visit. Even when fees are removed, charges for “school development”, or for exams or text books or uniforms keep many girls out. In addition, discriminatory policies, laws and practices (both at school and in the community) deny girls their right to education and entrench inequalities, poverty, quality and relevance of education. Adolescent girls with disabilities, those from rural settings, low-income and child-headed households as well as those from marginalized groups are at a significantly elevated risk of sexual exploitation and abuse, violence and teenage pregnancies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned a chronic challenge into an acute one. For instance, the restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID19 led to school closures, disruptions to health and social services, and job losses in households. With the protective cover of school pulled back, huge spikes have been recorded in teenage pregnancies, child marriage, gender-based and sexual violence, and sexual exploitation. Millions of girls may not ever return to school.

Fixing such a crisis depends on a whole-of-society commitment. It is that recognition which has brought together allies from across the African continent and beyond in the Education Plus Initiative – a high-level political advocacy drive and broad-based campaign, co-led by the Executive Directors of UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women. It leverages and combines the mandates, expertise, knowledge, skills and impact of five UN agencies, and brings in too the insights and determination of civil society organizations, adolescent girls and young women, youth and feminist networks.

Unequal gender power dynamics and harmful gender norms – compounded by intersecting forms of discrimination based on income, education, and disability – drive the risks girls face. These risks help drive the HIV pandemic, which, in turn, further exacerbates these inequalities. There is no way to succeed in ensuring that girls are safe and healthy unless they are empowered. As this year’s International Women’s Day theme notes, we need gender equality today for a sustainable future tomorrow.

Gender inequalities are systemic, and can only be countered with social mobilization, bold policy reform and scaled-up financing.

Every group of girls I meet on this continent teaches me something new, but they all remind me of one key lesson that we need all decision-makers to align their policies and their investments to: Everything we do to give girls a fair chance, they will give us back so much more in return.

Africa’s girls are the ones who will ensure that our development goals are realized. All they ask is that we ensure that they are schooled, safe and strong.

Caroline Ngonze manages Education Plus, a movement for the education and empowerment of every adolescent girl and young woman. You can read more about Education Plus here https://www.unaids.org/en/topics/education-plus

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Credit: United Nations

By Gabrielle Lipton
BONN, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

When I was a young girl, a friend and I spent our summers building a treehouse. We built it because our older brothers were building one and wouldn’t allow us to help them. So, we asked our parents to support us through the procurement of basic tools, collected scrap wood from the local hardware store, chose a tree, and then spent day after day puzzling beams and boards together into structure in which only people of our small size could fit.

Our brothers would often scope out our progress, refusing to believe we had managed some of the architectural feats on our own, but we didn’t mind their judgements. It was sturdy, it was ours, and it was perfect.

Although we’ve outgrown the treehouse now too, I pay it a visit from time to time, remembering the seasons spent among the branches building our humble stronghold – and building ourselves. Those summers taught me that even with the most minimal amount of support, there was little I couldn’t do with hard work, resourcefulness, teamwork and friendship.

I share this story today, ahead of International Women’s Day 8 March 2022, because I believe that every woman has such a story – likely one that involves far more odds that had to be overcome than the simple and privileged ones from my youth. Indeed, the statistics about gender equality in the context of sustainable development continue to be staggering.

While the exact percentage is debated, it’s widely agreed that women comprise the majority of the world’s poor. Eighty percent of people displaced by climate change are women and girls, and sixty percent of the world’s food insecure people are women and girls. And pretty much all pre-existing gender inequities have been exacerbated by COVID-19.

But what is more staggering still are women’s stories of triumph despite the obstacles – when they’ve turned others’ doubts into opportunities, when the fruits of their tireless labors yielded literally unbelievable results, when they were given a dime and built a castle.

This deserves reflection and recognition, which is why we at the Global Landscapes Forum are honoring such leaders and agents of change in our annual 16 Women Restoring the Earth campaign. This list raises up women from across five continents, three generations and all sectors who are using their efforts, resources, relationships, and willfully-built selves to help piece together a better reality – and future reality – for everyone else too.

This is our third year publishing 16 Women Restoring the Earth (see here 2020 and 2021), and in each iteration, it has been an immense privilege to learn about the lives of such extraordinary women and to work with them on creating and sharing this feature.

In this year’s list, we have a Grammy-nominated artist and musician who documents the hardships and joys of womanhood in Africa through song; a Pulitzer Prize–winning politician who helped negotiate relationships between major global powers while raising children; a young Indian activist who filed a lawsuit against her government at the age of 9 for not doing enough to protect her future from climate change; a scientist who has tracked the Amazon’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades so that we can know the state of the world’s most important forest; and a philanthropist who is courageously finding new ways to channel funds to local communities, to name just a few.

The phrase “restoring the Earth,” as one might notice, is used in the broadest sense, to encompass the multitudinous ways women are using their minds, bodies, time and gifts to reinstate harmony on this planet. The common thread between the women we’ve featured is their level of integrity, determination, resilience and humor.

The mission of the Global Landscapes Forum, in essence, is to help usher in a new relationship between communities and ecosystems in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The women we choose for our 16 Women Restoring the Earth campaigns have all been involved in our organization in some form or fashion during of our nine years of existence, whether they’ve spoken at one of our events, supported us through partnerships, or simply believed in our mission and played an active part of our global community.

It’s a difficult selection process each year, but one filled with gratitude for the contributions so many women have made to helping build our treehouse, so to speak.

This campaign, then, is a means by which to gently remind ourselves of the many forms of inequality that exist on this planet, some of which can be numerically quantified but many only told through words, stories and life experiences. It is to put forward a group of diverse role models that anyone can look to and think, “If she can do it, so can I.” It is a collection of light in challenging times to celebrate the many reasons for optimism and hope that still exist.

Most of all, we hope it serves as a pause, a moment for you to think of what it is you’re building and how you are contributing to the restoration of our Earth, whatever that means to you.

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Women predominate in the world's food production (50-80 per cent), but they own less than 10 per cent of the land. Credit: Jency Samuel/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

The picture is gloomy: not only do women represent 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty, but also up to 40% of the poorest households in urban areas are headed by women.

Should this not be enough, please know that:

• Women predominate in the world’s food production (50-80%), but they own less than 10% of the land.
• 80% of the displaced by climate-related disasters and changes around the world are women and girls.
• Climate change may lead to more gender-based violence, an increase in child marriages, and worsening sexual and reproductive health.

The above staggering data come from the UN on the occasion of the 8 March International Women Day.

Despite all that, the UN goes on, women and girls are effective and powerful leaders and change-makers for climate adaptation and mitigation.

“They are involved in sustainability initiatives around the world, and their participation and leadership result in more effective climate action.”

Equality, essential

Continuing to examine the opportunities, as well as the constraints, to empower women and girls to have a voice and be equal players in decision-making related to climate change and sustainability is essential for sustainable development and greater gender equality.

“Without gender equality today, a sustainable future, and an equal future, remains beyond our reach.”

In fact, the 2022 International Women’s Day claims “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”.

Women and climate change

For its part, the UN Women underlines that advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis and disaster risk reduction is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.

“The issues of climate change and sustainability have had and will continue to have, severe and lasting impacts on our environment, economic and social development. Those who are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised experience the deepest impacts.”

Women are increasingly being recognised as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men, as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on the natural resources which climate change threatens the most, adds UN Women.

According to this United Nations entity in charge of promoting the rights of women worldwide, “Without gender equality today, a sustainable future, and an equal future, remains beyond our reach.”

Women empowerment

The theme for International Women’s Day is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 66th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66): “Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes”.

UN Women puts the focus on four key action areas:

• Economic empowerment
• Ending violence against women
• Peace and security
• Humanitarian action

Leadership, political participation

Women’s equal participation and leadership in political and public life are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. However, data shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide, and achieving gender parity in political life is far off.

Women in executive government positions

• As of 1 September 2021, there are 26 women serving as Heads of State and/or Government in 24 countries. At the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years.
• Just 10 countries have a woman Head of State, and 13 countries have a woman Head of Government.
• Only 21 percent of government ministers were women, with only 14 countries having achieved 50 percent or more women in cabinets. With an annual increase of just 0.52 percentage points, gender parity in ministerial positions will not be achieved before 2077.
• The five most commonly held portfolios by women ministers are: Family/children/youth/elderly/disabled; followed by Social affairs; Environment/natural resources/energy; Employment/labour/vocational training, and Women affairs/gender equality.

Equality out of reach

In another report, UN Women says that with the latest data, we now understand the vital link between gender, social equity and climate change, and recognise that without gender equality today, a sustainable future, an equal future, remains out of reach.

“Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of the climate crisis as it amplifies existing gender inequalities and puts women’s lives and livelihoods at risk. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources, and often bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel.”

As women and girls bear the burden of climate impacts, they are also essential to leading and driving change in climate adaptation, mitigation and solutions.

“Without the inclusion of half of the world’s population, it is unlikely that solutions for a sustainable planet and a gender equal world tomorrow will be realised.”

A Play Leader in a BRAC Play Lab. Credit: Shananuzzaman Angkan

By Erum Mariam
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

Women around the world play crucial roles in education as formal educators, school staff members, and parents of students. But women are also transforming education as non-formal educators in ways that can be scaled to improve education broadly. As we celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8), it’s important that this transformative role is recognized.

I’ve seen it first-hand in my work with the BRAC Institute of Educational Development (BRAC IED) in Bangladesh, where we conduct research, develop curricula, and train and mentor women in Asia and Africa to become proficient in non-formal educational roles. That enables us to create educational innovations that can be scaled efficiently and broadly, because they rely on women in local communities, recruited from and trained in those communities, adapting and delivering programmes using locally available resources.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University, and supported by researchers in Bangladesh, underscores the point. A new two-year study reveals that an early childhood development model led by locally trained women has achieved one of the greatest goals of early childhood development – enabling children regardless of their initial readiness or level of privilege to enter kindergarten equally prepared.

The focus of the research is BRAC’s Play Lab model in Bangladesh. Play Labs provide safe spaces where children aged 3-5 engage in playful activities, supported by a flexible play-based curriculum – one that is culturally relevant and contextualized to suit local settings, and that promotes cognitive, language, physical, and social-emotional development. The activities are led by non-formal educators called Play Leaders – young women trained by BRAC IED, who also design the curriculum.

What’s so exciting about the study’s results is not only that it proves the extraordinary impact of Play Labs but that it demonstrates the power of the Play Leaders. These non-formal educators are the backbone of this study, and what’s even more encouraging is that there are young women whose potential is ready to be unlocked in every community in the world. That’s the key to scaling this proven solution, and a new Play Lab PlayBook provides essential resources and tools to equip partners and practitioners to scale this approach.

When COVID-19 arrived, it was the Play Leaders who innovated first. With limited or no access to the physical Play Labs, Play Leaders used basic mobile phones to maintain regular contact with children and teachers. This organic beginning led to the creation of Pashe Achhi (which means Beside You in English), a remote learning mechanism that provides learning opportunities for children and psychosocial support for caregivers. It also serves as a new emergency infrastructure for early childhood development during crises.

Experts at BRAC IED brought together psychologists and play-based curriculum developers to create 20-minute tele-conversational scripts, with a component for psychosocial support and another component for play-based learning. 1,300 Play Leaders were trained on effective delivery of scripts, and Play Leaders facilitated weekly 20-minute one-on-one calls with caregivers and children. In total, 40,000 calls took place weekly until Play Labs reopened.

The experts provided scripts and training, but 1,300 young women working as non-formal educators put the plan into action.

The focus on women as non-formal educators derives from BRAC’s investment in women in communities across Bangladesh to work as catalysts for change in a wide variety of roles. These health workers, legal aid providers, programme organisers, non-formal educators and community mobilisers have been the backbone of Bangladesh’s incredible social development. In education, for example, Bangladesh faced a massive challenge: 40% of its primary-aged children were not in school in the early 1980s. Half of the students who enrolled dropped out, and only 30% went on to complete primary education.

BRAC reimagined education: instead of expecting students to go to distant schools with all the logistical burdens and costs associated with that, BRAC brought schools to the students. It created an extensive system of one-room schools in almost every community and trained women in each community to teach grades 1-5. The training of these non-formal educators made scaling possible, and the results were impressive. Almost 100% of students completed fifth grade, and BRAC students consistently did better than public school students on government tests.

The role of women as non-formal educators should be celebrated for its proof of impact, its scalability, and its vital importance. At least 175 million children do not have access to quality, play-based early childhood education, and the world needs 69 million new teachers by 2030. Women – especially those serving as non-formal educators – are the key to meeting this need.

The author is Executive Director of the BRAC Institute of Educational Development at BRAC University in Bangladesh.

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Peruvian farmer Hilda Roca, 37, stands in her agro-ecological garden in Cusipata, a town located at more than 3,300 meters above sea level in the highlands of Cuzco, where she grows vegetables for her family and sells the surplus with the support of her adolescent daughter and son. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

“Pachamama (Mother Earth) is upset with all the damage we are doing to her,” says Hilda Roca, an indigenous Peruvian farmer from Cusipata, in the Andes highlands of the department of Cuzco, referring to climate change and the havoc it is wreaking on her life and her environment.

From her town, more than 3,300 meters above sea level, she told IPS that if women were in power equally with men, measures in favor of nature that would alleviate the climate chaos would have been approved long ago. “But we need to fight sexism so that we are not discriminated against and so our rights are respected,” said the Quechua-speaking farmer.

The link between climate change and gender is the focus of the United Nations’ celebration of this year’s International Women’s Day, Mar. 8, under the theme “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”.

The aim is to “make visible how the climate crisis is a problem that is closely related to inequality, and in particular to gender inequality, which is expressed in an unequal distribution of power, resources, wealth, work and time between women and men,” Ana Güezmes, director of the Gender Affairs Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told IPS.

Latin America is highly vulnerable to the climate crisis despite the fact that it emits less than 10 percent of the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.

In addition, climate injustice has a female face in the region: lower-income population groups, where the proportion of women is higher, are more exposed to climate effects due to their limited access to opportunities, despite the fact that they are less responsible for emissions.

The extreme poverty rate in the region increased from 13.1 percent to 13.8 percent of the population – from 81 to 86 million people – between 2020 and 2021, according to data released by ECLAC in January. Women between 25 and 59 years of age are the most affected compared to their male counterparts. This situation is worse among indigenous and rural populations, who depend on nature for their livelihoods.

These aspects were highlighted at ECLAC’s 62nd Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women, held Jan. 26-27, whose declaration warns that women and girls affected by the adverse impacts of climate change and disasters face specific barriers to access to water and sanitation, health and education services, and food security.

And it is women who are mainly responsible for feeding their families, fetching water and firewood, and taking care of the vegetable garden and animals.

“That is why we maintain that the post-pandemic recovery must be transformative in terms of sustainability and equality,” Güezmes emphasized from ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile.

To this end, she said, this recovery “must untie the four structural knots of gender inequality that affect the region so much: socioeconomic inequality and poverty; the sexual division of labor and the unjust organization of caregiving; the concentration of power and patriarchal, discriminatory and violent cultural patterns; and the predominance of the culture of privilege.”

Luz Mery Panche, an indigenous leader of the Nasa people of Colombia. : Courtesy of Luz Mery Panche

Reconciling with Mother Earth

Luz Mery Panche, an indigenous leader of the Nasa people, discussed the need to incorporate a gender perspective into the climate crisis. She talked to IPS from San Vicente del Caguán, in the department of Caquetá, in the Amazon region of Colombia, a country facing violent attacks on defenders of land and the environment.

For her, more than sustainable, “it is about moving towards a sustainable future.”

“We need to change the conditions that have generated war and chaos in the country, which is due to the hijacking of political and economic power by an elite that has been in the decision-making spaces since the country emerged 200 years ago,” she said.

Panche is a member of the National Ethnic Peace Coordination committee (Cenpaz) and in that capacity is part of the special high-level body with ethnic peoples for the implementation of the peace agreement in her country. She is a human rights activist and a defender of the Amazon rainforest.

She argued that to achieve a sustainable future “we must reconcile with Mother Earth and move towards the happy, joyful way of life that we deserve as human beings.”

This, she said, starts by changing the economic model violently imposed on many areas without taking into account the use of the soil, its capacities and benefits; by changing concepts of economy and the educational model; and by organizing local economies and focusing on a future of respect, solidarity and fraternity.

Panche said that in order to move towards this model, women “must have informed participation regarding the effects of climate change.

“Although we prefer to call Mother Earth’s fever ‘global warming’. And it is up to us to remember to make decisions that put us back on the ancestral path of harmony and balance, what we call returning to the origin, to the womb, to improve coexistence and the sense of humanity,” she said.

Uruguayan ecofeminist Lilian Celiberti carries a banner reading “Our body, our territory” in the streets of Tarapoto, a city in the central Peruvian jungle, during an edition of the Pan-Amazon Social Forum. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Changing times: another kind of coexistence with nature and equality

Lilian Celiberti, Uruguayan ecofeminist and founder of the non-governmental Cotidiano Mujer and Colectivo Dafnias, told IPS from Montevideo that governments have the tools to work on gender equality today in order to have a sustainable future tomorrow, as this year’s Mar. 8 slogan states.

But against this, she said, there are economic interests at play that maintain a development proposal based on growth and extreme exploitation of nature.

She called for boosting local economies and agroecology among other community alternatives in the Latin American region that run counter to the dominant government approach.

“But I believe that we are at a very complex crossroads and that only social participation will be able to find paths of multiple, diverse participation and collective sustainability that incorporate care policies and awareness of the eco-dependence of human society,” she said.

Celiberti said “we are on a planet of finite resources and we have to generate a new relationship with nature, but I see that governments are far from this kind of thinking.”

ECLAC’s Güezmes emphasized that social movements, especially those led by young indigenous and non-indigenous women in the region, have exposed the multiple asymmetries and inequalities that exist.

Ana Güezmes is director of the Gender Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. CREDIT: ECLAC

“We have an intergenerational debt, where young women have put at the center of the debate the unsustainability of the current development style that has direct impacts on our future at a global level and direct impacts on their livelihoods, territories and communities,” said Güezmes, who is from Spain and has worked for years within the United Nations in several Latin American countries.

She recognized the contribution of feminist movements that focus on a redistribution of power, resources and time to move towards an egalitarian model that includes the reduction of violence.

And she warned that from a climate perspective, the window of opportunity for action is closing, so we must act quickly, creating synergies between gender equality and climate change responses.

Güezmes said that “we are looking at a change of era” with global challenges that require a profound transformation that recognizes how the economy, society and the environment are interrelated. “To leave no one behind and no woman out, we must advance synergistically among these three dimensions of development: economic, social and environmental,” she remarked.

The expert cited gender equality as a central element of sustainable development because women need to be at the center of the responses. To this end, ECLAC plans to promote affirmative actions that bolster comprehensive care systems, decent work and the full and effective participation of women in strategic sectors of the economy.

She also raised the need to build “a renewed global pact” to strengthen multilateralism and achieve greater solidarity with middle-income countries on issues central to inclusive growth, sustainable development and gender equality.

“We have reiterated the urgent need to advance new political, social and fiscal pacts focused on structural change for equality,” Güezmes stressed.

She stated that in this perspective, the participation of women in all their diversity in decision-making processes is very important, particularly with regard to climate change.

To this end, she remarked, it is necessary to monitor their degree of intervention at the local, national and international levels – where asymmetry persists – and to provide women’s organizations, especially grassroots ones, with the necessary resources to become involved in such spaces.

“It involves strengthening financial flows so that they reach women who are at the forefront of responses to climate change and who are familiar with the situation in their communities, and boosting their capacities so that women from indigenous, native and Afro-descendant peoples participate in decision-making spaces related to the environment to promote the exchange of their ancestral knowledge on adaptation and mitigation measures,” she said.

Güezmes highlighted the contribution of women environmental activists and defenders to democracy, peace and sustainable development. It is necessary to “recognize their contribution to the protection of biodiversity and to development, despite doing so in conditions of fragility and exploitation and having less access to land, productive resources and their control,” she said.

For her part, Roca, who like other local women in the Peruvian Andes highlands practices agroecology to adapt to climate change and reconcile with Pachamama, calls for their voices to be heard.

“We have ideas and proposals and they need to be taken into account to improve the climate and our lives,” the indigenous farmer said.

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By External Source
Mar 7 2022 (IPS-Partners)

One of our greatest challenges is advancing gender equality in the face of the climate crisis.

They constitute the majority of the world’s poor.

They are also more dependent on the natural resources threatened by climate change.

In the 21st Century, women are more vulnerable to climate impacts than men.

Of the 1.3 billion people on earth living in poverty, 70% are women.

In urban areas, 40% of the poorest households are headed by women.

80% of those displaced by climate related disasters are women and girls.

Women are more likely to be killed by natural disasters than men.

Women and girls are also more likely to go hungry.

The UN believes that without gender equality today, a sustainable and equal future will remain beyond our reach.

However, women and girls are effective and powerful leaders and change-makers for climate adaptation and mitigation.

They are involved in sustainability initiatives around the world.

Their participation and leadership results in more effective climate action.

This International Women’s Day, let’s claim “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”.

By Lesley Ann Foster
EAST LONDON, South Africa, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

WAR

The world is currently facing a devastating war with dire prospects for our global security. Men are waging this war while women seek peace and security for their families, communities and our global society. Women are give birth and nurture while some men actively seek death and destruction. This is one of the fundamental differences between the sexes which underpins patriarchy and generates inequality on many levels. Women and girls bear the brunt of this unbalanced approach to life.

Lesley Ann Foster

Women come to International Women’s day 2022 having fought, struggled, suffered, gained and lost with the COVID 19 pandemic deepening existing fissures across political, economic, social and technological spheres. All gender struggles were widened and deepened by the pandemic with violence against women being among the most pronounced. Gender inequality was the largest fissure that COVID 19 ruptured globally.

It was striking that the spike in violence against women was identified very early on in the pandemic with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guiterres, warning about the risk of such a spike due to the shelter in place regulations required to stem the spread of the virus. The same call was made by the World Health Organisation. Yet, very little was put in place to provide women and girls with protection against the violence that inevitable occurred as a result of the lock down regulations. The world saw and pre-empted the violence but the political will to address it holistically and comprehensively was not there. Inequality was allowed to fester and grow.

The North South divide was striking in the loss of jobs, food insecurity, increased care burdens and, of course, the access to vaccines programme where the South has fought hard to get its populations vaccinated and virtually no promises by countries in the North materialised. Africa still has only 7% vaccine coverage with women the least likely to be vaccinated.

In South Africa 2,6 million jobs were lost with 2 out of 3 being lost by women. Jobs continue to be lost with large swarths of essential workers, mainly women, still being retrenched. The economic fall out is not restricted to these job losses but include the build back policies and programmes where the World Bank and IMF are re introducing Struggle Adjustment policies to countries forced to borrow money from them to counter the impact of the pandemic. There has been no genuine investment from the North to address poverty and inequality in these processes. Women are left wanting on all fronts.

WEATHER (Climate and environmental change)

Perhaps the biggest and most profound challenges to the women for the world are in the Climate change and environmental disaster movement as these intersecting issues are amongst the most challenging sustainable development problems of our current times because so many aspects of human rights are eroded and lost especially for women and girls in marginalised communities. The first risk at the time of a natural disaster is that of violence to vulnerable communities as women and girls in those communities experience poor resourcing. Homes are lost, livelihoods affected, food security threatened and rapes become a reality for far too many women and girls.

Climate change and environmental disaster programmes continue to fail to apply a gender analysis to the disaster management initiatives and most do not take into account the lived realities of women and girls leaving them at continued great risk of various forms of abuse. This sets back development goals and create more barriers to eliminating gender based violence and achieving equality.

The world needs a comprehensive risk reduction framework based on a human rights approach that ensues that there are policies, programmes and resources allocated to comprehensively address the climate change and environmental disaster challenges.

WELLBEING

There are several positive developments that offer hope and inspiration for the wellbeing of our global community but women and girls specifically. Young women activists from around the world are fighting for just transitions after environmental or climate change disasters. Their struggle for equal participation in rebuilding efforts is taking hold in Africa, South America, India and across other developing nations.

The gender-based violence movement has heard the voices of young women as they come to the fore in the #MeToo campaign, the Totalshutdown campaign and the #TimesUp campaign to name a few.

The Generation Equality forum, an initiative of UN Women, is also contributing in a significant way to get states from both the North and the South to make renewed commitments to addressing gender inequality by 2030. The Action Coalitions are global multistakeholder partnerships that are working jointly to catalyze collective action, initiate conversations intergenerationally from the local to the global level, while also eliciting increased resources mobilization from individuals, institutions and the private sector. These initiatives build on each other with the main aim being to secure significant changes for women and girls.

We must take heart from the fact that while women everywhere are experiencing multiple threats to their safety, their security and their overall wellbeing; advances are being made through actions small and large and we must celebrate these achievements on this International Women’s day 2022.

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A nurse on a maternity ward in a rural hospital powered by solar energy through the UNDP-led Solar for Heath initiative in Zimbabwe. Credit: Karin Schermbrucker for Slingshot/UNDP

By Lucia Cortina
PANAMA CITY, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

Access to clean energy improves women’s lives in a myriad of ways. It supports access to education and quality healthcare, opens new economic opportunities, and reduces unpaid domestic labour and gender-based violence. Yet too often, the sector as a whole – from industry to policymaking – still fails to include women as energy users, decision-makers and agents of change of the energy transition.

To succeed, the energy transition must be just. It must be done in a way that delivers sustainable energy access for all, leaving no one behind. It must be done with women. Here are three ways the clean energy sector and related policies can help to unleash the power of women for a just energy transition.

1. Accelerating action on clean cooking, which is a vast health crisis impacting women disproportionately

Household air pollution leads to a staggering 3.8 million premature deaths each year — nearly half of all air pollution-related deaths – and 60% of which are women and children. This is driven by a lack of access to clean technologies and fuels for cooking, which directly impacts a third of the world’s population yet receives little attention and action. 2.6 billion people rely on solid fuels for cooking, which comes at significant health and social costs that disproportionately impact women and children. Most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, in the world’s poorest and most remote communities.

In these communities, women and children are often in charge of collecting wood for cooking and heating, spending up to 18 hours a week doing so. They are vulnerable to sexual violence on their routes. They also breathe in harmful gas every day from open fires or inefficient stoves while cooking.

A woman using an electrical blender in a remote village in Cambodia. Cerdit: Okra Solar

Clean cooking solutions such as electrical or more efficient stoves not only improve the lives of billions of women by freeing up time that can be used for education, income-generating activities, or rest and leisure; it also saves millions of women’s and children’s lives each year.

Yet too often, clean cooking is not seen as the policy priority it is. While a lot of progress has been made in the past decade when it comes to access to electricity – with the share of people lacking electricity decreasing from 1.2 billion in 2010 to 759 million in 2019 –, relative progress on clean cooking has been much slower, with the share of people lacking access to clean cooking only decreasing from 3 billion to 2.6 billion since 2010. This lack of progress maintains gender inequalities. Women’s energy needs must be identified, prioritized, and adequately addressed. This includes involving women in the design and promotion of clean cooking technologies to ensure that these adequately meet their needs.

2. Empowering women with new economic opportunities

Beyond clean cooking, access to clean energy can also open up new economic opportunities for women by supporting livelihoods and generating new sources of income.

In Yemen for instance, with UNDP’s support, a group of women have set up a private solar micro-grid near the frontlines of the conflict– bringing much-needed electricity from clean energy to their community while earning an income and pushing gender boundaries. In Peru, an energy school trains women to become clean energy entrepreneurs by teaching them to install, maintain and commercialize solar panels and improved cookstoves.

In India, in the remote village of Khunti in Jharkhand, women entrepreneurs produce face masks and sanitary pads thanks to solar-powered, electric sewing machines – enabling women to earn an income while providing women in rural areas with much-needed menstrual hygiene products.

Access to clean energy, especially when it supports the productive uses of energy, is a powerful means to advance socio-economic development in a way that reduces inequalities and increases women’s resilience. When this gender perspective is foreseen and included in clean energy projects and policies, these become transformational for the entire community.

3. Improving women’s representation at all levels of the clean energy sector

The energy sector is one of the sectors with the lowest levels of women representation – even though the renewable energy sector fares better than the fossil fuel sector, with women representing on average 32 percent of the renewable energy workforce compared with an average of 22 percent in the oil and gas sector.

But while the energy transition is expected to create 30 million jobs worldwide by 2030, current predictions show that the proportion of women in the clean energy sector will decrease because the subsectors expected to drive this job creation such as in construction and electric machinery equipment, are the ones with the lowest women representation.

The clean energy sector must do more to identify and address the barriers preventing women from entering and thriving in the sector.

To be just and effective, the energy transition must be done with all parts of society – including with women, and in a way that addresses women’s needs and preferences.

Women need to be included as agents of change not only as beneficiaries. As part of UNDP’s Sustainable Energy Hub, UNDP’s gender and energy strategy ensures that gender is a pillar of our programming on energy, and feeds in every policy and program that we support countries with.

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Credit: UN Women/Narendra Shrestha

By Lina Taing and Grace Oluwasanya
HAMILTON, Ontario, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

UN Women estimates 150 million women and girls are emerging from poverty by 2030, thanks largely to comprehensive education, labor, and social protection strategies and reforms implemented by governments around the world.

Celebration of this anticipated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) progress is tempered, however, by the realization that a majority — roughly two-thirds — of the 435 million women and girls experiencing extreme poverty will likely be left behind.

The impact of gender inequality has severe costs and consequences for entire societies. Women and girls in 80% of households without on-premises drinking water access miss out on innumerable economic and educational opportunities due to daily water collection responsibilities.

Women also are underrepresented in leadership and decision-making roles despite making up nearly half of the world’s population. Moreover, lifetime earnings of women could increase by more than half – that is, US $24,586 per person or $170 trillion globally – if women earned as much as men.

This year’s International Women’s Day, celebrated since 1911, aims to further raise awareness of and break the bias that perpetuates gender inequality in the 21st century.

This bias continues despite gender mainstreaming and other public policy measures that unequivocally affirm the equal rights of women and men and officially integrate gendered perspectives in legislation, research, resource allocation, and project management and monitoring.

Farmers in Laikipia County constructing vertical gardens – a climate smart approach that reduces labour input, creates diversity in crops and increases water preservation. Credit: UN Women/James Ochweri

In the water sector, blind spots pose a particular barrier to progress.

Blind spots due to limited data, discriminatory structural and systemic violations such as stereotypes and norms, need to be urgently addressed.

Even within the SDGs there are blind spots: none of the 11 indicators for SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) are related to gender, for example.

While “paying special attention to the needs of women and girls” is descriptively highlighted in Target 6.2 (adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene), all of SDG 6’s indicators are actually gender-blind as data such as the proportion of women and girls accessing safe services or involved in decision-making are not monitored.

The water sector needs to collect gender-disaggregated data measuring women’s ability to meet their water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs, access resources, and exercise agency if it is to develop evidence-based gender equality policies and interventions.

The water sector can draw from the SDG Agenda’s 53 gender-specific indicators, a recent review on gender-related WASH measures and quantitative measures of social change informed by a feminist perspective to build gender-specific monitoring system at programmatic, national and global scales.

Meanwhile, less than half of 109 countries reporting on gender mainstreaming in water laws and policies specifically mention women’s participation in resource management and rural sanitation.

And in places where women’s equality seems most advanced, some of the women that managed to get a seat at the table have complained of their participation being tokenistic in both community and government structures.

When women’s perspectives are not incorporated in policies and the construction and location of supposedly gender-neutral water infrastructure, resulting interventions can actually constrain women’s economic and educational opportunities.

Women also can feel insecure with having to use services that put their personal safety at risk, as well as not meet their basic menstrual hygiene disposal and personal cleansing needs.

Meaningful and substantial women’s empowerment efforts and representation are critical to ensure that current systems are transformed to tackle the harmful roots of inequality in the water sector. The causes of these violations need to be uprooted if everlasting change is to be achieved.

Outdated stereotypes and social norms – such as women being steered to traditional caregiving domestic and professional roles – are at the root of gender bias and barriers in the water sector.

Additionally, socio-institutional expectations and patriarchal practices limit many women’s ability to reconcile the time and energy committed to caregiving and work.

Consequently, women are overrepresented in unpaid work roles (including water carriage) and underrepresented in industrial leadership or decision-making roles.

While sectoral interventions have targeted gender imbalances in domestic roles and decision-making, gender mainstreaming in the workplace continues to be an uphill struggle.

Globally, less than one in five water sector workers are women, with underrepresentation in both technical and managerial positions.

To break this institutional barrier, the World Bank advises addressing salary inequities by assessing gender pay gaps for equivalent work, offering staff training opportunities informed by a gender lens, and adopting a four-pronged approach that attracts, recruits, retains and offers career advancement opportunities for the next generation of female water leaders.

The realization of gender equality is a key component of the global development agenda, and essential if the water sector is to contribute to the achievement of SDGs 1 (no poverty), 5 (gender equality), 6 (clean water and sanitation), and 10 (reduced inequalities).

Putting gender-disaggregated data measures, supportive legal and physical infrastructure, and inclusive social systems and institutions in place can help #breakthebias by overcoming gender blind spots that perpetuate harmful and inequitable divisions of control, power, and labor.

Lina Taing is the Water and Health research lead, and Grace Oluwasanya is a Water, Gender and Climate Change research lead at the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), a Canadian-based think tank supported by the Government of Canada and hosted at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

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Francine Ntoumi. Credit: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung/DavidMattiesen

By Heike Kuhn
BONN, Mar 4 2022 (IPS)

Again we commemorate International Women’s Day – it is March, 8. We want to celebrate women’s achievements and raise awareness for their successes, taking action for equality. Today I would like to draw your attention to women in science and in particular to one outstanding scientist.

Did you ever hear of Professor Francine Ntoumi? If so, you may already know that she is a Congolese parasitologist specializing in epidemiology of malaria. As the first African person in charge of the secretariat of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria in Dar es Salaam/Tanzania (2006-2010), she became well-known for her research. Today, she focuses on other infectious diseases, leading important research activities.

To give some background on her career: Born 1961 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, she received her education both in Brazzaville and Paris. After finishing her Ph.D., she started her career at the Pasteur Institute of Paris, then moving as a researcher to Gabon and taking over the position as Scientific Director for the European Developing Countries Trials Partnership in The Hague/Netherlands (2006/2007). Due to her outstanding career and knowledge, she became a member of many scientific and advisory bodies, including the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the WHO and the Global Health Scientific Advisory Committee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In my country, Germany, she has received the Georg Forster Research Award in 2015, a highly respected distinction for scientists. And just recently, in January 2022, she was appointed as Assistant Professor for tropical diseases at the University of Tuebingen, a place where she had already been working before. On her Facebook account she is telling us that this recent appointment goads her to spread her knowledge to others.

Impressed by her career, I was drawn to reflect on women in science altogether. Is it a fact that women are less attracted by science and what are the obstacles once a career has started? Let us have a closer look at what happens after the birth of a girl: She finds a surrounding either encouraging or not – her family, kindergarten, school, higher education. A smart girl will learn and compete, not getting discouraged by persons who may disesteem her simply because she is a girl. But there are signals, words, sometimes threats, telling her that smarter toys or jobs are not for her, but for boys. Suppose, she did not falter and was not impressed by these actions and will instead succeed, climbing the steps on her education and get her degrees with distinction, followed by a Ph.D.

When she gets a young adult, there is another important choice to make: continuing the research activities or to start a family, often with taking over more burden than her partner will. Being in charge of a newborn or a toddler is a most enriching and, however, time-consuming experience. Depending on your partner’s availability you manage spare time for your (scientific) obligations – or you simply do not. Some young women even do reject to start a family – a choice a man by our culture is not requested to make. Maybe there are female role models to encourage her in finding her way.

From my point of view, Professor Francine Ntoumi depicts such a role model, inspiring others: On February 11, 2022, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, she advocated for this day, calling it a reminder to work and encouraging young girls committed to scientific work to follow their aspirations. “It is to us, it is to you to act” she is calling upon them, because “no one will do it instead of us” (all to be seen on her Facebook account). What is also seen and understood: Science is hard work, her career was a long and persistent effort, but she did climb this ladder in one direction – always upstairs.

And yet – despite her experience of 40 years, her membership in many scientific bodies, she pointed publicly to the fact that she is often regarded as an UFO as African women in science are highly underrepresented (see an interview with Ntoumi in Agence d’Information d’Afrique Centrale March 2, 2014). What a comparison! Reading this, I did remember the famous American biographical film “Hidden Figures” (2016), telling the story of African American female mathematicians who supported the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with their extraordinary analytic skills. The exclusion of these women from the relevant high-level meetings and the removal of their names from reports did soon end when their male supervisors understood their exceptional capacities securing the success of space flights and the reputation of the country.

Reflecting on these remarkable achievements of women in science I firmly believe that we should recognize the contribution of girls and women in building a more sustainable world for all of us. As intellect has no gender, we will need ideas and concepts from all experts worldwide. And there are female experts, everywhere. Let us empower them and listen to them. This very day.

Dr. Heike Kuhn is Head of Division, Education, Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany

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Chiedza Murindo decided to do something about the power poverty in rural Zimbabwe. She installed a three-light solar home system and now has light. Women are playing an increasing role in alternative energy strategies. Credit: Tonderayi Mukeredzi/IPS

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
Harare, Zimbabwe , Mar 4 2022 (IPS)

Electricity transmission lines run through Chiedza Murindo’s home in Murombedzi, a small town in Zvimba district in Mashonaland West province, but her house has no electricity. That is the harsh reality for much of Zimbabwe’s rural population, where only 13% of households live without power compared to 83% of urban households.

Disgusted by the energy poverty around her, Murindo became one of the first customers in her area to purchase a three-light solar home system from PowerLive Zimbabwe. This woman-led social enterprise uses mostly women to sell, distribute and install solar energy systems on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model to off-grid rural households.

“The Home 60 has three lights, including a sensor light. We don’t have electricity right now, so we use the system to light the home, charge phones, and security at night. Our neighbours who don’t have the system also come to charge their phones with us,” she tells IPS.

Murindo, a teacher at Sabina Mugabe High School, is among dozens of women that PowerLive Zimbabwe has employed to sell and install its products.

“I get a commission for the sales I make from marketing and selling the solar systems, so that adds to my income and help in bringing food to the table,” she says.

Sharon Yeti, the founder and CEO of PowerLive Zimbabwe, says 75 percent of her company’s workers are women, and 85 percent of the 40 sales agents are women. Forty percent of the technicians or installers are women too.

“I’ve always wanted to do something to empower the girl children. The ‘how’ part came later. But having worked for a solar energy company, I thought I could provide solar systems to off-grid rural areas with women as our sales agents. After all, women are more affected by energy poverty,” Yeti, who founded the company in 2018, tells IPS.

She says the project has raised the standard of living for many households, particularly women whose confidence has grown because they can earn money. Children benefit from being able to study after dark. And people’s health has improved away from the toxic use of fuel-based lighting.

Since its inception, the energy start-up has distributed 4 789 solar homes systems to over 20 000 households in ten of the country’s districts. The project isn’t just focused on solar lights but distributes solar products for productive uses like solar water pumps, fridges, hair clippers and entertainment.

According to the African Development Bank, Africa has the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally. Yet, they face a cocktail of gender-specific challenges in accessing finance, with a finance gap of around $42 billion.

But for a start-up, Yeti’s PowerLive has been particularly lucky in accessing finance. In 2020, it got a 350 000 Euro grant from a clean energy financier, EEP Africa; then, in late 2020 and 2021 secured a combined US$400 000 from the Energy Access Relief Funding (EARF) and the Distributed Finance Fund (DFF).

“The funding had helped us a lot, to buy more systems, employ more sales agents, and employ more people and pay salaries when we were in lockdown for seven months,” she says.

“Going down to December 2020, we hadn’t made any sales, and in as much as we were paying salaries, we had no income, our customers were not paying, and our stock had run out. So, it was a challenge. That’s when we got funding from AERF, meant to assist companies that had been affected by COVID-19.

“It came just at the perfect time when I was beginning to think we need to start downsizing, but we didn’t, which was also the same for the funding from the DFF. It just helped us get more stock and to maintain people,” she says.

A woman installs electricity in a rural home. A woman-owned solar energy project targets women customers and benefits women as sales agents and technicians. Credit: PowerLive Zimbabwe

Dorothy Hove, executive director of Women Resource Centre Network, a gender and development organization, says the establishment costs of available renewable options like solar were still high for rural households, who are unwilling to change from traditional energy sources to modern technology.

Although girls and women are primarily responsible for the bulk of household work, access to modern energy alternatives was not sufficient to guarantee gender equality.

“Women can play a key role in the green energy transition as responsible consumers, particularly in the household, but also in business and policymaking where measures to support greater access by women to clean and affordable renewable energy are lacking.

“Women’s empowerment and leadership in the energy sector could help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy by promoting clean energy and more efficient energy use, as well as help to tackle energy poverty. The just transition should also include a gender perspective, to guarantee equal opportunities for both men and women in the workforce,” she says.

According to a 2019 report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), renewable energy employs about 32% of women globally compared to 22% in the energy sector overall.

In Zimbabwe, Hove estimates women account for less than a quarter of employees in the energy sector, which decreases with seniority levels.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

By Farhana Haque Rahman
TORONTO, Canada, Mar 4 2022 (IPS)

For decades women’s demands for political and economic inclusion have placed them centre-stage in mass struggles against dictatorships across the world. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its indiscriminate attacks on civilians now put women’s movements firmly on the front line of war, autocrats and fossil fuels.

Farhana Haque Rahman

As Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks powerfully illustrate in their essay, Revenge of the Patriarchs – Why Autocrats Fear Women, this patriarchal backlash is also playing out in “illiberal democracies headed by aspiring strongmen”, such as Brazil, Hungary, Poland, India, the Philippines and even the United States under former president Donald Trump and still in some Republican-controlled states.

“Aspiring autocrats and patriarchal authoritarians have good reason to fear women’s political participation: when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy.”

Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has basked in a hyper-masculine strongman image perhaps only outdone by Trump’s casual misogyny, has raged against Russia’s falling population and seen the answer in eroding women’s reproductive rights. Dealing women’s rights a further blow, domestic violence was decriminalised in Russia in 2017. Russian propaganda in Ukraine for years has also sought to erode the position of women in society, relegating them to “traditional” roles.

Just as women are resisting this patriarchal backlash, and literally taking up arms in Ukraine, so too they are on the frontline of the climate crisis, as recognised by the theme this year for International Women’s Day on March 8: “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.”

In the words of UN Women, a UN entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women which is also active in the Ukraine crisis: “Advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis and disaster risk reduction is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century…Those who are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalized experience the deepest impacts. Women are increasingly being recognized as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men, as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on the natural resources which climate change threatens the most.”

But women and girls are also protagonists, active as effective and powerful leaders and change-makers for climate adaptation and mitigation. “Without gender equality today, a sustainable future, and an equal future, remains beyond our reach.”

Which brings us back to tyranny and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is not a war for resources but it is about oil and gas, which Putin has weaponised to advance his expansionist goals. Europe is dependent on Russia for 40 percent of its natural gas supplies. Global gas prices, already rising because of the post-pandemic economic rebound, were driven further by Russia tightening supplies to Europe ahead of the invasion. Russia can also soften the blow of western economic sanctions with sales of gas to China.

Put simply, the more demand there is for oil and gas, the more money there is for Putin, which explains why countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia – waging war in Yemen with western support – are far from enthusiastic about combatting climate change. Russia’s gas industry is also a major emitter of methane, a highly dangerous global warming gas.

“As current events make all too clear, our continued reliance on fossil fuels makes the global economy and energy security vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and crises,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared on February 28.

Guterres was responding to the release of the devastating climate crisis report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which he described as “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership”.

“This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home,” he added. “Fossil fuels are a dead end – for our planet, for humanity, and yes, for economies.”

All these elements were illustrated in dramatic fashion last week in a virtual meeting of IPCC scientists and government representatives to approve the report.

Oleg Anisimov, a Russian scientist, was reported as apologising “on behalf of all Russians who were not able to prevent this conflict”. The attack on Ukraine had no justification, he said.

Ukrainian scientist Svitlana Krakovska, speaking from Kyiv, had to cut short her participation in discussions because of the invasion but was reported as telling her colleagues:

“Someone could question us that IPCC is not a political body, and should only assess science related to climate change. Let me assure you that this human-induced climate change and war against Ukraine have direct connections and the same roots. They are fossil fuels and humanity’s dependence on them.”

Krakovska, who later expressed her concern for the safety of her Russian colleague, said while greenhouse gas emissions were impacting the planet, the easy use of coal, oil and gas had changed the balance of power in the human world. “We cannot change laws of the physical world but it is our responsibility to change laws of human civilization towards a climate resilient future.”

Osprey Orielle Lake, leader of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), has echoed those words in her response to the IPCC report:

“From countries around the world, we must listen to frontline and Indigenous women leaders and their communities, who are not only experiencing the worst impacts of climate change right now, but who also carry knowledge and expertise necessary for real climate action, solutions and adaptation grounded in justice, human and Indigenous rights, and the protection of vital biodiverse regions.”

Indigenous, Black and Brown women and women from the Global South bear a heavier burden from the impacts of climate change. We stand in solidarity with all women who, like Krakovska in Ukraine, stand on these frontlines.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

By Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius , Mar 3 2022 (IPS)

When countries improve their Global ranking, there is rejoicing within the community that progress has been made at last.. but has it and why does it matter ?

Unfortunately, upon careful analysis of the World Economic Forum predictions, the world will not reach gender parity until the year 2156 – date pushed back by another 36 years as a result of the pandemic. We can take comfort in the fact that the WEF prediction is based on a straight-line extrapolation of the trend over the past fifteen years into the future. What is perhaps of greater value is the collection and aggregation of the range of indices on gender equality from around the world, from education to wages, health and politics. On the latter field, the news have been disappointing. While some countries like Iceland have been closing the gap, others like Japan lag way behind.

Yet, progress has come from unexpected quarters – unexpected because the ingrained stereotype would have it that the Arab world would not allow female presence in politics. In 2019, the UAE’s Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, issued Presidential Resolution No. (1) ordering equal representation of Emirati women in the Federal National Council. This decision saw female representation jumped from 23% in 2019 to 50% today.

How to handle this disparity? Is it time for quota? Also why do we need female representation at all? This is a question that the developing world no longer asks especially when it comes to issues like food security, climate change amongst other issues. At COP 26, the link has finally been made between gender equality and climate change.

It has been said time and time again that the effects of climate change put women at increased risk of hunger, food insecurity and violence. This threatens women’s income, health and way of life. Women feed their families and are the prime caregiver especially in developing countries. Entire households depend on them to provide food, fuel and water which is expected to become scarcer as temperature rise.

Women’s ability to financially provide for themselves and their families will also be affected and they make up 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty. In Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, over 60 per cent of women are employed in agriculture, often in labour-intensive activities, unpaid or poorly remunerated. In sub-Saharan Africa, women comprise 30 to 80 per cent of the agricultural labour force, and produce about 4-25% less in the value of agricultural produce per unit of cultivated land than their male counterparts. The gender gap in agricultural productivity exists because women often have unequal access to crucial agricultural inputs such land, labour, knowledge, fertilizer and improved seeds. This has implications for the income, health and nutrition of both women and children.

Also 70% of the women work in the agricultural sector which stands to be devastated from increasingly unreliable weather and increased intensity and regularity of extreme weather events and by way of example, the island of Madagascar has witnessed four large and intense cyclones since early 2022.

The chances of women escaping the situation is bleak. As the effects of climate change intensify, the opportunities for women to gain the resources, skills and education may fall out of reach. It was expected that in 2021 alone, climate-related events would prevent at least 4 million girls in lower-income countries from completing their education. If current trends continue, that number will reach 12.5 million by 2025.

However, tackling climate change to resolve these issues will not be impossible if women are not empowered to be included in the discussions and, more importantly, the decisions. As key contributors to communities, as carers and activists, as well as in local food systems and in the home, women are in a unique position to drive longer-term climate resilience.

Yet, women continue to be marginalised. Women make up only 19% of IMF and World Bank boards and less than 30% of national parliamentarians. The gender pay gap also continues to be an issue. Worldwide, women share 35% of the global income, an increase of only 5% since 1990. The responsibility and opportunity to tackle gender inequality and climate change lie in the hands of both governments and the private sector.

Funds pledged at COP26 will go towards local communities and grassroots women’s groups in Asia Pacific to challenge gender inequalities, and to help adapt to the impacts of climate change. Given the urgency and magnitude of the global challenges that face the world, we must do better at harnessing the leadership, ability and aptitude of women, recognizing their unpaid care and domestic work, and ensuring gender-responsive economic policies for job creation, poverty reduction and sustainable, inclusive growth.

All institutions have their role to play. Private companies can tackle issues both externally and internally. Internally, they can work on the changes of the gender split in board rooms, correcting the gender pay gap, working to end discrimination, and creating a work culture that empowers women.

Externally, companies can invest in projects that directly support the development of women as well as form partnerships with charities and communities to give girls and women the education, skills and opportunities they need to succeed.

The more we talk about these issues, the greater the awareness there will be.

Greater awareness means there is more we can do, together, to address these pertinent issues and no matter how small the actions, they can build momentum until they have a positive impact for women and girls around the world because empowering women is no longer just an ethical issue. It is now an economic one. Economic gender parity ensure gains not only for economies of both developed countries and developing countries.

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By Jacqui Hunt
LONDON, Mar 3 2022 (IPS)

At Equality Now, we have been on a years-long journey to track and analyze sexual violence laws and their implementation around the world. This work was born after working with survivors of sexual violence for over two decades and observing that women and girls reported similar barriers to justice regardless of where they were from.

While local, national, and regional context impact a victim’s experience, it is also clear that many of the challenges they face are universal.

From Eurasia to the Caribbean, to South Asia and North Africa, we discovered laws which were supposedly meant to protect women and girls but in reality it perpetuated, and in some cases, even promoted gender-based violence and discrimination.

We found instances of so called “marry your rapist” laws which permit rapists to avoid legal accountability by marrying their victims, the decriminalization of marital rape, and laws that use terminology of chastity and honor rather than consent.

While there is a range of ways in how laws in themselves are failing victims of sexual violence, one common trend is that the implementation of laws around the world neglect to take into account the unique needs and vulnerabilities of marginalized communities.

Many countries do not apply an intersectional lens when implementing sexual violence laws, resulting in the further marginalization of already underserved populations. For example, in Guatemala, indigenous survivors face additional barriers to justice due to insufficient translation services and the lack of geographically accessible courts and law enforcement.

In Georgia, the ability of women living with disabilities, particularly those with psycho-social needs, to testify in their own cases might be wrongly discounted. In the United States, a legacy of structural racism has resulted in a distrust of law enforcement by communities of color, resulting in low reporting rates of sexual violence by Black women.

And around the world, we found that adolescent girls were routinely under-protected by sexual violence laws and frequently negatively stereotyped when seeking justice.

UN officials say that gender-based violence is a “shadow pandemic,” hidden beneath COVID-19. Credit: UNDP

Adolescent girls are uniquely vulnerable to experiencing sexual violence, and yet too often they are denied access to justice and support services. The emergence of girls’ sexuality during puberty is frequently used as a justification to disinvest in their schooling and personal development while simultaneously appropriating their labor, sexuality, and fertility.

No longer afforded the protections of childhood, nor recognized as adults, they find themselves in a precarious position, often victimized and labelled sexually promiscuous or a “temptress,” leaving them isolated and unsupported rather than protected from exploitation and abuse.

Additionally, a dearth of age-appropriate services and education means that adolescents are often not fully aware of their rights and lack the ability to self-advocate even when legal recourse is available to them.

Some discrimination is even embedded in the law itself. Estupro laws or provisions, which are found throughout Latin America and in substance in other laws further afield, allow for lesser penalties for the rape of an adolescent above the age of consent than for an adult woman or child below the age of consent.

Criminal justice officials utilize estupro provisions to portray adolescent girls as manipulative seductresses who tempt adult men into illicit sex. These laws perpetuate the misconception that victims are often, at least partially, responsible for their own abuse and that rape is simply an act of sexual deviance rather than one of violence, control, and entitlement.

By suggesting that sexual violence is the fault of the victim, estupro provisions contribute to a wider culture of victim blaming, in turn deterring survivors from reporting crimes and seeking help. This means that cases either aren’t prosecuted, thereby allowing impunity for the perpetrator, or that these lesser charges are brought, thereby reducing punishment for the perpetrator.

Stigma surrounds all forms of sexual violence, but cases of incest are especially taboo and thus survivors of this form of violence are even less likely to receive justice. According to UNICEF, 40-60 % of known sexual assaults within the family are committed against girls aged 15 and younger, thus adolescent girls are particularly impacted by the silence around this form of abuse.

In cases of incest, the perpetrator is most often a male family member and there is a strong tendency to keep the abuse private at all costs, at the expense of the rights and wellbeing of the victim– most often a young or adolescent girl. By keeping the matter under wraps, the victims of familial abuse will often suffer long lasting and devastating psychological, emotional and physical consequences.

Equality Now’s study, conducted with Pakistani partners, of incest in Pakistan found that child and adolescent victims of incest faced numerous barriers, including: stigma as a barrier to reporting, attitudes of law enforcement, prosecutorial misconduct, untrained medical professionals, drawn-out trials, and a lack of youth-specific services.

In the rare cases where girls and adolescents attempted to report a case of incest, they were met by a criminal justice system that shamed and stigmatized them. One fifteen-year-old girl who was raped by her father was told by the police that she was “doing something wrong” by reporting her abuse and that by speaking publicly she would “stain her family’s honor.”

Her experience was unfortunately not unique. Another young woman reported that the police refused to take her statement about being raped by her brother-in-law because they claimed that it was simply an instance of “enmity between two families.”

It is difficult for all survivors of sexual violence to receive justice and to stand up against laws and systems that seek to undermine their credibility, but for adolescent girls the challenge is even greater.

For them, and for their future as women, we need robust laws, survivor-informed and gender-sensitive implementation, and intentional collaboration between all actors to ensure that every survivor’s needs are considered, addressed, and supported.

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Activists in Myanmar taking part in the 'Sarong Revolution'. Credit: Khin Su Kyi

By May Sabe Phyu
NEW YORK, Mar 2 2022 (IPS)

This will be the second International Women’s Day since the brutal coup erupted in Myanmar – and women remain fiercely in the lead in demanding justice and peace in the streets and behind closed doors.

Last February, the coup threw Myanmar into further chaos and violence. The military used excessive force, indiscriminate killings, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, limits on civic space, nightly raids, and more.

With this complete upheaval, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are in the midst of a set of complex emergencies. The world watched in horror, but as usual, the situation quickly faded from the headlines, the public conscious, and policy priorities.

Under these circumstances, the people of Myanmar have held steadfast. With the onset of the coup, people expressed their dissent and opposition against the seizure of political power. Everyday sheroes and heroes shunned the security of their secure jobs and pensions to join the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Myanmar has seen protracted civil war for 70 years, but what makes this time difference is the scope of the conflicts. There are new armed clashes across the country with local forces standing up to defend their lives and their communities.

Meanwhile, old conflicts have also re-emerged due to the military’s crackdown of the pro-democracy movement. There is widespread violence against the civilian population and on humanitarian workers. The junta has committed atrocities., prompting the UN General Assembly to declare the army’s actions as crimes against humanity.

This year, the women activists of Myanmar will be campaigning with the themes of “Break the Bias, End Discrimination” and “Break the Bias, End Dictatorship.” It takes a lot to keep the women of Myanmar off the streets, but escalating threats are forcing many to raise their voices and awareness through different means.

In addition to some public protests, social media and digital campaigns are sharing women’s stories of discrimination. Any act of resistance under the military rule brings risk, but we will not be silenced.

May Sabe Phyu. Credit: Aye Thada Hla

Women often need to flee without notice, but the current system does not meet their specific needs. We would like to develop a special fund for women who are forced to leave their communities abruptly.

More than the very real threats of physical violence, NGOs and civil society organizations face other challenges that block the assistance they aim to provide – many organizations cannot access their funds and are unable to formally register their organizations because the Central Bank of Myanmar is controlling the foreign money coming into the country.

Despite these hurdles in all directions and threats to themselves and their families, first responders continue to jump into the fray, scrambling to find resources necessary for their work.

Even after many countries condemned the SAC’s egregious acts against their own people, we have seen little concrete action or improvement in the situation. It feels like many in the international community are overwhelmed and therefore paralyzed, but international solidarity and pressure makes a difference at all levels and is needed more than ever.

We appeal for leaders to listen to the people on the ground and to be willing to support for women’s human rights organizations with the creativity and flexibility that is necessary to meet our specific and changing needs.

The United States has tools at their disposal to support the people of Myanmar and bring accountability to those committing atrocities – and one in particular that could move the needle:

The Burma Act is an important piece of legislation that provides urgently-needed resources to civil society, pro-democracy organizations, and humanitarian agencies. It also calls for the United States to exert pressure on the UN to take decisive actions on Burma.

The Burma Act also outlines the unconditional release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Myanmar. The Burma Act is very much in line with what the people of Myanmar have been calling for. I and my fellow activists urge Congress to pass this legislation urgently.

The Burma Act would be a vital step, but it’s one of many we need to see real and lasting progress: The United Nations, the international community, and leaders must do all in their power to support the women-led movement for peace and democracy in Myanmar.

Activists – with women at the forefront – continue to bravely flash the three-finger salute, wave the sarong flags, and tell their stories. The international community must match their bold acts to make sure their insistent dream of democracy, human rights, and peace can be realized.

May Sabe Phyu is a Kachin social worker and activist from Burma. She is the director of the Gender Equality Network and founded the Kachin Women’s Peace Network and the Kachin Peace Network to promote the rights of Kachin women.

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Adolescent girls attend a support group discussion on women’s health. Sexual and reproductive health rights, are human rights, the independent UN expert on the right to health reminded Member States in the General Assembly, saying that it was essential to restore services in the field, that have been eroded during the COVID-19 pandemic. October 2021. Credit: UNICEF/Tapash Paul

By Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 2 2022 (IPS)

The devastating effects of climate change continue to disproportionately affect women and girls in the poorest regions, who have contributed the least to global warming.

Oftentimes, climate change impacts exacerbate socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and the health of women and girls, particularly their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Yet, the solutions to address climate change impacts fail to prioritise the needs of SRHR of women and girls in climate action.

Currently, women and girls in the Global South face the double injustice of having limited access to SRHR services and having disproportionately higher exposure to climate change risks.

For example, extreme weather patterns increase the vulnerability to food insecurities, infectious and vector-borne diseases, combined with disruptions to essential services such as antenatal care, due to climate-related infrastructural damages, have had significant implications for maternal and child health outcomes.

In the Asia Pacific region, where water levels are rising, pregnant have a higher risk of malaria infection due to pregnancy-induced physiological changes. These have also been associated with a higher prevalence of premature delivery, stillbirths, and low-weight births.

Geographical isolation and displacement due to climate change increases the risk of gender-based violence and sexual violence and reinforce poor access to SRHR services. This is evident in South Sudan and Yemen, where the effects of the climate crisis- such as drought and flooding- worsen the humanitarian crisis of famine and conflict.

As such, there have been grave implications on the SRHR of women and girls, including the disruption to family planning, antenatal care, and increasing rates of sexual violence of women and girls.

Furthermore, financial hardships caused by climate shocks also increase the likelihood of school dropouts of girls, resulting in childhood marriages, teenage pregnancies, and sexual trafficking of girls and women. In Uganda, for example, loss of livestock, crop failures, and food insecurities due to extreme droughts, and locust invasion were found to increase school dropouts, reinforce the practice of forced labour among girls, and increase the incidences of child marriages in exchange for food.

During climate emergencies, we have seen the sudden diversions and disinvestments of sexual and reproductive health resources to disaster management, further compromising efficient SRH service and delivery.

This is well documented in the current COVID-19 pandemic, where the burden of the pandemic, combined with the impacts of the climate crisis, particularly on low-resource health systems, has further accentuated the diversion of funds and resources away from routine and essential sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.

While the demand for SRH services, such as contraceptives, increased during the pandemic, it was found that women and girls faced greater barriers to accessing family planning services, skilled-assisted deliveries, and antenatal care visits.

Additionally, the pandemic halted essential sexual and reproductive health-oriented programs and interventions, which has resulted in increasing rates of female genital mutilation, childhood marriages, and pregnancies.

Despite this evidence, there is little discussion and delayed action in integrating the needs of SRHR in climate adaptation and mitigation plans. This lack of attention will undoubtedly cause major future setbacks in advancing SRHR and reverse some of the hard-won gains in gender equality, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls.

The message is clear; we cannot deliver sustainable climate change interventions and adaptations if we do not strengthen the reproductive health and rights of women and girls. Therefore, it is essential at this critical juncture of recovering from the pandemic and addressing the climate crisis, that we look for solutions for collective action. We provide some key suggestions:

Document good practices.

In a UNFPA Nationally Determined Contributions report of 50 African countries, only nine countries referenced SRHR in their climate change adaptation strategies. This missing component of how climate change intersects with SRHR and limited discussions on risk management plans are concerning.

A starting point is to take a more proactive approach by documenting good practices of how countries and organisations have previously worked to ensure strengthened access to SRHR services before, during and after disasters.

These can serve as guiding strategies to improve targeted local and national interventions to support women’s SRHR in the context of climate change. Additionally, dialogue between key actors working on climate change response and those working in SRHR provides valuable opportunities to share lessons and exchange hard-won solutions to advance gender equality in health programmes.

In this regard, the Gender and Health Hub at The United Nations University, International Institute of Global Health (UNU-IIGH) is organising a side-event at the CSW66, focusing on applying these transferrable lessons from the SRHR space to climate change responses.

Shifting focus of the climate change responses.

Most climate change-related mitigation efforts advocate family planning as a win/win approach due to evidence linking reduced population growth to improved climate change outcomes. This approach is both problematic and simplistic. First, it is problematic as it shifts responsibility from the Global North – the largest contributor to global warming – to women in the Global South and emphasises reproductive control.

Second, it is simplistic as it fails to address how underlying drivers of vulnerability– such as power dynamics, access, intersectionality, and poor health systems – combine to create significant barriers that prevent women’s improved SRH and resilience to climate change.

Thus, there is a need to shift focus from reproductive control to managing the SRHR outcomes of vulnerable women and girls as part of climate change adaptation strategies. This involves strengthening health systems and reducing other SRHR vulnerabilities (e.g., FGM, child marriage) that may be exacerbated due to climate shocks.

Engage women and girls.

Women and girls of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and identities need to be recognised as key actors and be given prominent roles in planning climate change adaptation strategies that address social vulnerabilities at all levels.

Equal partnerships and consultations with feminist organisations, advocacy groups, and female-led community groups are also important to raise awareness, promote the acceptability of interventions, and increase reach to vulnerable women (e.g., women with disabilities). This ensures that reproductive health needs are considered and met as part of disaster management plans.

Increase SRHR financing as part of emergency preparedness.

There is a need to move beyond a ‘zero sum’ game of diverting resources from SRHR during emergencies to seeing the mutual benefits that can occur when SRH services are strengthened during climate shocks.

This involves increasing public spending on the scale-up of SRH programmes, improving affordability, and building the capacity of reproductive health systems to effectively sustain SRH services and deliver timely responses during climate shocks.

Women and girls face heightened vulnerabilities to both climate shocks and access to SRH services. The adverse effects of climate change are already exacerbating an already stark problem of unmet need with regards to SRHR.

Recognising that women’s rights are human rights, a shared agenda between strengthening women’s reproductive health and building climate change resilience is needed to achieve a sustainable tomorrow and ensure that no one gets left behind.

Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando are Postdoctoral Fellows at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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