Rural women in climate change and disaster risk reduction

17 October 2008

Source: Philippine Daily Enquirer

The biggest international gathering on gender in climate change and disaster risk reduction (DRR) will convene at Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City, on Oct 19 -22.

A global meeting

It is the first time that major international bodies will unite on this important topic. Coordinated by the Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics (Capwip) led by Dr. Jung Sook Kim, the participating groups include the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Womens Environment and Development Organization (Wedo), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), United Nations Fund for Women (Unifem), Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Union for Conservation (IUCN) and the Global Gender Climate Alliance (GGCA).

Why the focus on rural women?

Last December 2007, Alyansa Agrikultura noted that there was not one single rural woman representative with the Philippine delegation that went to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) in Bali, Indonesia.

The Alyansa then got the endorsement of the Departments of Agriculture and Environment and Natural Resources for one of its leaders to be in this delegation. She was Remy Rikken, Agriwatch Board Member and Capwips director of international operations.

On her return, Rikken reported that she was aghast: The gender issue was not even on the climate change agenda! Capwip then worked double time with Dr. Feng Min Kan of UNISDR and their organizing partners to correct this through the Third Global Congress of Women in Politics and Governance.

The Congress purpose is to help formulate gender responsive legislation and programs related to gender in climate change and disaster risk reduction. Their excellent work has paid off250 prominent parliamentarians, key government officials, and well-known environment scientists from 68 countries are participating in this conference.

Women in agriculture

According to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) publication, global warming has a tremendous impact on the estimated 1.4 billion rural people who depend on small-scale resource poor farming in developing countries.

It states: The profound effects of climate change in agriculture, combined with the low resiliency and high vulnerability of this population to shocks, could severely alter their ability to manage natural resources, affecting their livelihoods, food security and well being. At risk are their jobs, their homes, and their access to basic resources, including food and water.

Women play a very important role in agriculture. They plant, produce, procure and prepare most of the worlds food. Women are responsible for about 75 percent of total house food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, 65 percent in Asia and 45 percent in Latin America.

Recognizing the link between climate change and rural women, Kellie Tranter wrote: Logically, human beings of both sexes should react in much the same way to environmental threats, and any differences in the effect of disasters between the sexes should be fairly small.

I was appalled at what it showed: More women die than men as the direct and indirect result of natural disasters. Ninety percent of the 140,000 victims of the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone disasters were women and the 2006 tsunami killed three to four women for each man.

Dr. Jyoti Parikh, director of the Integrated Research and Action for Development (Irad), explains why women are more vulnerable than men, specially in rural areas: They are more prone to the adverse impacts from climate change. Their limited adaptive capacities arise from prevailing social inequalities and ascribed social and economic roles that manifest itself in differences in property rights, access to information, lack of employment, and unequal access to resources. Further, changes in the climate usually impact on sectors that are traditionally associated with women, such as paddy cultivation, cotton and tea plantations, and fishing. This means increased hardship for women.

Recommendation for Global Congress

Not only is this Congress successfully bringing together for the first time the major international organizations on the subject of gender in climate change; its speakers are also among the most influential global leaders in this area.

Among them are Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD secretary general and former WTO director general; Dr. Salvano Briceno, UNISDR director; Nobel Peace Price Laureate Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai, founder of the Kenya Greenbelt Movement; Lorena Aguilar of IUCN; Rebecca Pearl of GGCA and Cate Owren of Wedo.

With such a gathering of internationally respected organizations and prominent personalities, it is expected that the Congress participants will formulate creative and effective proposals to mainstream gender in climate change, specially where rural women are concerned. They can then take these proposals back to their respective constituents for concerted national, and even worldwide, implementation.

After this, Congress, rural and other women (because they are the most affected) will hopefully participate in all future climate change negotiations and decisions in their respective countries.