Guest Article: Climate Response for Drylands Must Include Women ... - IISD's SDG Knowledge Hub

Guest Article: Climate Response for Drylands Must Include Women | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD

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Women’s needs, expertise, and opinions cannot be ignored if we are to create a truly climate-resilient future and to achieve the SDGs, including Goals on gender equality (SDG 5), climate action (SDG 13) and life on land (SDG 15).

When women’s roles are recognized by policy instruments, women are incentivized to take part in sustainable landscape management and other restoration initiatives.

By Tiina Vähänen, Deputy Director, Forestry Division, and Fidaa F. Haddad, Forestry Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN

In the world’s drylands, which are home to nearly 40% of the global population, women are feeling the effects of climate change. Droughts and land degradation have dramatically altered dryland landscapes, where communities depend on forests, other wooded lands, and grasslands for their livelihoods and to meet basic needs.

Women are often responsible for growing food, collecting water, and sourcing firewood for their families. When drought causes water to dry up, women have to walk further to collect it, taking even more time away from livelihood generation or education.

According to FAO’s Status of Women in Agrifood Systems report, women spend more than double the amount of time on unpaid domestic work than men do, largely due to time spent collecting water. Climate change is driving this figure up further.

This experience in managing natural resources gives women a deep understanding of their surrounding environment and knowledge of how to support nature and adapt to changing conditions. Yet despite this, and despite the impact of climate change on their daily lives, women are often excluded from decision-making processes that address the issues.

In many traditional societies men hold the majority of land rights and economic resources. Women’s access to and control over natural resources and services is often restricted, and their participation in local community meetings or councils is considered unnecessary.

Because women’s voices are not heard at the local level, this has a knock-on effect. There are subsequently fewer women participating in national decision-making processes. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, for example, women make up just 10% of environmental ministers, and in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) – only 7%. On the international level, this trend continues: at the 2022 Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 27), women accounted for less than 34% of country delegates.

Today, the world marks the UN Desertification and Drought Day under the theme, ‘ Her Land. Her Rights.’ We must remember that women’s needs, expertise, and opinions cannot be ignored if we are to create a truly climate-resilient future and to achieve the SDGs, including Goals on gender equality (SDG 5), climate action (SDG 13) and life on land (SDG 15).

Since 2020, the number and duration of droughts has risen 29%. In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people faced water stress. By 2050, droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population.

We must act now.

When women leaders and women-led organizations in dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral regions do get a seat at the table in climate change policy processes, policy outcomes are more informed, gender-responsive, and effective. Because women are often dependent on environment-related income activities, they hold unique knowledge of agroforestry and biodiversity conservation and have developed location-specific and gender-just solutions to adapt and increase resilience to climate change.

When women’s roles are recognized by policy instruments, women are incentivized to take part in sustainable landscape management and other restoration initiatives. In doing so, unequal power structures are gradually eroded and women increasingly fill leadership roles, enabling them to promote wider women’s rights, including access to natural resources, training, technical assistance, financial services, and technologies.

To help women around the world to make themselves heard at regional, national, and international levels, FAO has been supporting the WeCaN Community of Knowledge Practice for Women, a platform which connects women’s organizations so they can work together to bring about this change in dryland regions.

Since 2021, the platform has provided online training to help women in dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral systems build skills in negotiation, gender mainstreaming, and advocacy so that they can formulate clear policy demands and address them to the right audience.

At the same time, it has developed a close community that promotes South-South knowledge dissemination, empowering women to work together for climate justice.

And progress is being made. WeCaN members have attended high-level fora, including the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 15) and UNFCCC COP 27.

Last month, the community validated an advocacy roadmap which lays out a clear path forward to ensure members’ requests, policy demands, and needs are considered in key climate-related decision-making processes. It also creates partnerships with other like-minded organizations and develops a space to share knowledge and strengthen advocacy work.

The overall goal is to enhance women’s capacities today, so that tomorrow we can see gender-responsive climate change policies and a more sustainable future for all.

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