With women-led organizations receiving just 1-3% of global financing for climate adaptation, UN Women is calling for women and specifically African women to get a much larger share — as well as a bigger voice in discussions — at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 27, which kicks off Sunday.
“We have to make sure that financing goes to women.”
— Jemimah Njuki, chief of the economic empowerment section, UN WomenThe success of the U.N.’s own joint program shows what can happen when money is invested in helping women farmers face climate change. The decade-old Accelerating Progress Towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women initiative, a food security program managed by four U.N. agencies, has seen up to 80% increases in agricultural productivity in the countries where it operates, according to Jemimah Njuki, chief of the economic empowerment section at UN Women. Further, 77% of the producer organizations the U.N. agencies work with are women-led, she said.
Nutrition and climate advocates seek fruitful alliance ahead of COP 27
Nutrition advocates are looking to the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference as an opportunity to join the two communities behind the common objective of increasing access to sustainable diets that are healthy for people and the planet.
Launched in 2012, the initiative provides women farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with “climate smart technologies” such as rainwater collection tanks and other tools. Last month, the U.N. announced it would expand the program to Tanzania, along with Nepal, Niger, the Pacific Islands, and Tunisia in its second phase.
But with women receiving such a small share of climate finance dollars, COP 27 must include discussions about how to get more funds into the hands of womens’ and girls’ rights organizations, Njuki said in a pre-COP 27 briefing earlier this week.
“We have to make sure that financing goes to women,” she said.
COP 27 must also be a platform for women operating smallholder farms, Njuki said. Men represented more than half of the speakers at COP 26 in Glasgow last year, she noted.
The $5 million, five-year project in Tanzania will help steer more than 8,000 rural Tanzanian women farmers toward “climate smart agriculture” that will help respond to climate change challenges that disproportionately affect them because of their “reduced access to agricultural resources, lack of decision-making authority, and weak adaptation strategies,” the U.N. said in a statement.
About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
