it’s called the “family photo” — the image of over 100 world leaders who gathered here in Paris on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Summit. Organizers said it marked the largest gathering of heads of state in history. But who is missing from the picture? Perhaps there’s a clue in the French national motto, “liberty, equality, fraternity.” Where are the women? Only a handful of female heads of state appear in the photo of this global fraternity. And when it comes to heads of national delegations negotiating a global climate treaty here at COP21, women are still few and far between.
Priscilla Achakpa talking:
when it comes to the issues of negotiations, the African woman are, most of the time, completely absent, or nearly absent. And this is something that is very important for us because we cannot be talking about negotiations that half of the populations are affected, which are the women. And then the issues that have been discussed they have been completely neglected, or they’re not even involved at all. For us, coming from the background of Africa, this is something that is very crucial for us and is something that we want our leaders to really take on board, and look at it very critical, because you cannot be discussing the issues that affect us without us being at the table to negotiate these issues.
when you look at the creation, how God created us, women are affected differently because of their vulnerability. First and foremost, because of their reproductive system. And therefore they’ve been affected by impact of climate change separately. But when you look at the impact, it’s so diverse, that the impact of climate change on women is so heavily that, because as caregivers, who took care of the elderly, who take care of the children, who are also the reproductive system, most of the times it’s so difficult for them to bear the impact of this climate change, I mean. So when you look at how it affects them, definitely, it affects them differently. For instance, I come from Nigeria, and I will talk about Nigeria, and I will start from the issue of the Lake Chad
Lake Chad is a river. And this river was feeding over millions of people in the 1970s. Lake Chad river basin is now dried up. Hundreds of millions of people have been displaced as a result of the dried up of Lake Chad. And most of the people that are affected are women and children because the men are forced to migrate, but the children cannot leave because they have the children there to take care of them. So the women, most of the times, are forced with the impact of climate change and they can’t not live with it daily.
coming from the issue of the Boko Haram, and I’ve often said that when we’re addressing the issues of Boko Haram we should look at the issues of environmental insecurity. Because, if we address the issue of environmental, which many factors have been affected — the rivers are drying up, the source of livelihoods of most of the people who are dependent upon these rivers, including the Lake Chad, which is situated in the northeast part of Nigeria, and therefore, a lot of people have been displaced. There’s poverty. Their source of livelihood is completely eroded. So when you take out the source of livelihood of these people and you leave them with no options, no alternatives, of course the tendency is that they resort into violence. And they said an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Where are they supposed to get what to take care of themselves? Because, I mean, Lake Chad and all these places were the source of their livelihoods.
Our organization, Women Environmental Programme, is dealing very much with the issues of solar power. Solar dryers, particularly. Because we have a lot of perishable crops. First and foremost you have tomatoes, you have onions, you have pepper, you have oranges. Most of these crops, I mean, have been destroyed because the women do not have the storage for them. And how to package them becomes impossible. So for us in our organization, part of what we’re looking at, how can we help the women to package some of these products that will be marketed even when it’s off season, instead of throwing them away? And that was how we brought in the issues of solar dryers that we’ve been using very much. And the women have learned— I mean a part of it has — I mean true cooperatives. Once one come to dry up, they use that process of generating kind of income back into the system. So even when it’s off season, they still have tomatoes, they still have pepper, to be able to sell out.
I was in the hall when the President of the African Development talked about the $12 billion. And which specific funds was going to be allocated to the women. For me, that was heartwarming. But then we were very concerned how these funds was going to be allocated. Because sometimes we hear such funds, but when it comes to the actual disbursement of the funds, it never gets to anybody. Especially the women groups. So for us, we want to see the practical disbursement of practical applications of these funds, reaching especially the grassroots woman. Without all those ambiguous and difficult conditions that will be attached to it or how women will assess this grant. We want to see more of the women be — I mean using those funds, applying it on the ground, but also using it as kind of solutions to address the impact of climate change for them. And so we are calling on the bank—while we are very much happy that the bank has talked about the money for special funds for the women—we want, we don’t want a fund that at the end of the day the women will not be able to access it.
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Priscilla Achakpa
delegate from Nigeria, and is with the Women’s Caucus and the Women and Gender Constituency here at the U.N. Climate Summit.
— source democracynow.org