Women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of the adverse impacts created by climate change. It was highlighted that women must be fully integrated into the processes of formulating and implementing policies to ensure fair gender inclusion.
Women remain underrepresented in climate governance and debates, and the COP27 Gender Thematic Day brought together women leading climate at national, regional and the global community level, to discuss matters of gender within the climate agenda.
The Gender Thematic Day launched at COP27 on the 14th of November, looks forward to bringing this issue to the forefront and provide a platform to discuss existing challenges in this space. The sessions held also aim to share success stories from around the world with a view of promoting gender sensitive and highly responsive policies, strategies and actions.
During the opening session for Gender Day, the African Women’s Climate Adaptive Priorities (AWCAP) initiative was announced and launched by Dr. Morsi. This initiative stems from a key insight that in the wake of disasters, women and children are ~80% of those needing assistance, while poor women in rural areas are 14 times more likely to die during a natural disaster.
President of the National Council for Women in Egypt Dr. Maya Morsi emphasized “Women are not just helpless victims of climate change, they are powerful agents of change, and their leadership is critical. A bottom-up approach is significant to understand women in communities, their environmental concerns, realities and experiences.”
While paneling a discussion, former Irish president Mary Robinson called for a bespoke climate fund to support grassroots women to tackle climate change and build resilience.
The African Development Bank organized the session held during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh under the theme, Gender Sensitive and climate just finance mechanisms.
The panelists said facilities tailored to supporting women, who are helping to build climate resilience, must be visible, simple, and easily accessible.
“There is a problem about the visibility, transparency and accountability, and although there is some money floating around, we don’t have a properly dedicated climate fund or a permanent climate fund to support women entrepreneurs in combating climate change,” Robinson said.
Robinson gave the example of some women-led projects in Uganda which could do ten times more if they had access to targeted climate resources. “They had no prospects of getting the money that could be available for their sector – they didn’t even know who was getting the money or where it was going.”
#COP27 Live | Gender Day
At the opening of Gender Day. Women’s agency in climate dialogue and implementation was the key focus. The session saw the official launch of Egypt’s African Women’s Climate Adaptive Priorities initiative #AWCAP. pic.twitter.com/xGDDCsFHYr
— COP27 (@COP27P) November 14, 2022
Opening the session, African Development Bank Group Vice President Vice for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, Kevin Kariuki, said the Bank had earmarked funding for ten capacity-building projects, focusing on gender and climate through the Africa Climate Change Fund.
“Moreover, we are committing $100 million in loans to public and private sector projects to address gender and climate issues,” Kariuki said. “The Bank is also developing an adaptation mechanism to enable individuals and groups, including women and youth, to borrow money for climate adaptation projects,” he added.
This article has been published with support from MESHA/IDRC grant for coverage of COP-27 by African science journalists
