NAIROBI, Aug 16 (IPS) – After years of reporting on the frontlines of climate change, I have seen the devastating impact of extreme weather events on women and girls. In Kenyan pastoralist communities in remote areas of northern Kenya, West Pokot, Samburu and Narok Counties, droughts mean a resurgence of harmful cultural practices such as banned female genital mutilation (FGM), bead stringing and child marriage.
When I visited Samburu County in 2019, beading was a thing of the past. A young girl is given a specific type of necklace to wear to signify that a Moran or male youth has booked her for marriage. In turn, the Moran is allowed to sexually exploit her for favors given to her family in the form of gifts such as a goat, milk, and meat.
During the recent severe drought of 2022-2023, such harmful practices returned. Child marriage is used as a coping mechanism to get back lost livestock or, in the case of beading, to put food on the table. Pregnancies during the beading process are brutally terminated. Having a child outside of marriage is taboo.
Even as deadly floods ravaged the country earlier this year, women and children cried out for help. In my experience reporting on climate disasters, the UN estimates are accurate. Women and girls are 14 times more likely to die when disaster strikes, and nearly 80 percent of all displaced people are women and girls.
Their vulnerability and exposure to natural disasters stem from pre-existing social and economic inequalities. When I was growing up, my mother, aunts and grandmother would visit or organize a carousel on the last Sunday of every month. Women formed groups and once or twice a month they would take turns visiting each other, bringing household items purchased from a fixed monthly or bi-monthly fee.
My earliest memories are of household items such as kitchen appliances, bedding and groceries. Later these items were phased out for money to be spent on the most urgent needs in various households, including school fees.
From the merry-go-round emerged the revolutionary Table Bank movement: a group financing strategy where all contributions are put on the table once or twice a month and distributed among members in the form of short- and long-term low-interest loans.
It took me years to understand why women struggled so much to raise money. They were excluded from formal financial institutions due to historical and structural gender inequality. Even today, women still make up the majority of unbanked people in Kenya.
Women could only open a bank account if they were accompanied by a male facilitator, and I saw growing up that women could only get access to land through male relatives. Only 1 percent of land titles in Kenya today are held by women.
When a climate disaster strikes, women have nowhere to go. They wait out dangerous climate events, hoping that it is just a passing cloud. But for women like Benna Buluma, aka Mama Victor, a renowned human rights defender who died in the April 2024 floods while living in her home in the informal settlements of Mathare, and millions of others, it is a disaster that can destroy lives and livelihoods.
Jane Anyango Adika van serial slide (government aid!) fame became the face of the persistent call for gender-sensitive responses in times of flooding through repeated media attention in a region ravaged by persistent flooding. By the time Anyango came into the limelight, she had already been battling flooding for two decades. As recently as 2022, she was crying out to the government for help.
Today, we are increasingly aware that extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods create favourable conditions for vector-borne diseases such as Zika virus, malaria and dengue fever, which miscarriages, premature birth and anemia in pregnant women.
I have yet to hear arguments that deny that climate disasters affect women and girls more than men and boys. The lack of women in decision-making is simply a manifestation of widespread gender discrimination that takes different forms in everyday life. In our patriarchal societies, where women are seen and not heard, it plays out in the very serious and consequential climate arena.
As a result, Men still hold 67 percent of climate decision-making positions and women Representation in national and global climate negotiating bodies remains below 30 percent. The SDG Gender Index 2022published by Equal Measures 2030, a leading global partnership on accountability for gender equality and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reveals alarmingly insufficient progress on gender equality at the global level between 2015 and 2020.
Of the 17 SDGs, Goal 13 on climate action was one of the three lowest-scoring goals and even countries with high performance on the index had weaknesses in gender equality under SDG 13. It is deeply worrying that while men own land and control natural resources, women are the pillars of agriculture and land management in two-thirds of all states worldwide.
I hope that the world will slowly but surely realize that there is no escape from the climate attack, now that half of the world’s population (women) are left behind in crucial decision-making structures regarding climate. This hope has recently been fueled by the climate and gender equality agenda of the Conference of Parties (COP).
Since COP25, experts have told world leaders that gender equality and climate change are not only two of the most pressing global challenges, but that they are inextricably linked. At COP25, the Parties adopted the five-year enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and its gender action plan (GAP)Followed by a mid-term review of the implementation of the Gender Action Plan and the amendments to the GAP adopted at COP27.
At COP28, a new report from UN Women stated that By 2050, climate change could push up to 158 million more women and girls into poverty and ensure that 232 million people face food insecurity. During the conference, Parties agreed that the final evaluation of the implementation of the enhanced Lima Work Programme and associated GAP would start in June 2024, identifying challenges, gaps and priorities.
In my view, the road to COP29 should be littered with gender and climate blueprints from countries that are already making progress. Zimbabwe is now setting up a renewable energy fund to create entrepreneurial opportunities for women. Bhutan in South Asia has trained gender focal points in various ministries and women’s organizations to better coordinate and implement gender equality and climate change initiatives.
This in turn will ensure that gender equality and equity are achieved at all levels of climate-related decision-making. Representation at all levels of climate negotiating bodies around the world will not deliver an effective and sustainable climate agenda if half the world’s population continues to be left behind.
Please note: This opinion piece was published with support from the Open Society Foundations.
IPS UN Office Report
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