By Nesia Mhaka
The Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry in partnership with the Ministry of Women Affairs, and with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Climate Promise has come up with a gender analysis report and Gender Action Plan which seek to promote women’s full participation in climate change solution-building.
The analysis report seeks to ensure that gender aspects are factored into the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) revision processes by leveraging analysis, strengthening institutional mechanisms and ensuring gender responsive climate actions.
The Gender Action Plan (GAP) seeks to advance women’s full, equal and meaningful participation whilst promoting gender responsive climate policy and mainstreaming in the implementation of the Convention at all levels.
The GAP also calls for inclusiveness as well as gender sensitive and responsive policies, programs and projects within all climate change elements of mitigation, adaptation, capacity building, technology transfer and finance.
Zimbabwe is facing an increasingly critical need to act against climate change, and the important role that rural women and youths play in building resilience is unquestionable.
Women, especially those in rural areas are the most hard-hit by challenges emanating from climate change as they have to devise ways of adapting to the changes in sectors such as agricultural systems and patterns.
According to statistcs from Zimstat and from the National Gender Profile of Agriculture in Zimbabwe, rural women constitute about 70 percent of household and family labour in rural communities.
As a country therefore, there is need to continuously empower and capacitate women especilally those who live in rural areas so that they can strengthen their households as well as mitigate the effects of climate change.
Due to changing weather patterns, the critical role of women in enhancing agricultural development as well as ensuring food security is increasingly becoming difficult, hence it is imperative that countries must come up with mitigation strategies for these changes.
In a bid to survive, women have had to fall back on the environment with some cutting down trees for firewood, which is creating more problems for the environment as this indiscriminate cutting of trees has accelerated climate change.
Women farmers in the country may be as productive and enterprising as their male counterparts, but many have little or no access and ownership to land, credit lines, agricultural inputs and access to markets and all these issues need to be addressed at national level.
In Zimbabwe, the impacts of climate change are becoming more visible, including access to productive and natural resources, amplifying existing gender inequalities particularily in marginalised areas.
“Climate change affects men and women’s well-being differently in terms of agricultural production, food security, health, water and energy resources, climate-induced migration and other climate-related natural disasters.”
This was said by Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hosipitality Industry Permanent Secretary, Mr Munesushe Munodawafa in a speech read on his behalf by the director of Climate Change Department, Mr Washington Zhakata during a validating workshop of the Gender Analysis Report, Gender Action Plan and Climate Change Mainstreaming Training of Trainers Workshop held in Nyanga last week .
Mr Munodawafa said mainstreaming gender and climate change is one of the country’s priorites as it is a roadmap for sustainable development.
“Climate change is the most important issue facing the world today, while achieving gender equality and equity is one of the priorities of our time, and one of the greatest human rights challenges in the world.
“The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Conference of Parties (COP) in 2019 adopted the Gender Action Plan (GAP) a significant milestone for the advancement of gender equality and women empowerment. Gender equality is also included in the Paris Agreement as integral to social transformation and climate action,” he said.
Mr Munodawafa said gender equality has also been implanted in Government Policies as a critical strategy for women empowerment across all sectors.
“Nationally, the new Zimbabwe Constitution upholds gender equality as one of its principles. Gender mainstreaming has also been embedded in Government Policies as a critical strategy for the promotion of gender equality, equity and women empowerment across all sectors.
“The revised National Gender Policy of 2017 has climate change as one of its thematic areas to which gender sensitive programming and inclusivity has to be fostered in order to attain inclusive sustainable development.”
Mr Munodawafa added that the required action on climate change needs a transformative approach from the traditional tactic to ensure full stakeholders’ participation across the gender divide.
“There is broad understanding for the need to support strengthening of gender roles and ensuring the mobilisation of all capacities to address climate change.
“Therefore, linking climate change and gender in the revision of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) process requires an inclusive dual approach of both gender-responsive mitigation and adaptation measures,” he said.
Speaking at the same event, Zimbabwe Gender Commissioner, Mrs Naome Chimbetete said in most rural communities across the country, women and girls are still suffering disproportionately from multi-dimensional poverty.
“Many women within this demography are unpaid family workers and are often limited to subsistence farming and whenever there is a surplus to sell, rural women seek to make profit for the sustenance of the family as opposed to personal gain.
“Government and other development partners such as the UN should co-operate in empowering rural women and girls as it is essential to building a prosperous, equitable future for all on a healthy planet.
This is also needed for the country to achieve gender equality, ensuring decent work for all, eradicating poverty and hunger and taking climate action,” she said.
Acting Director, Community Development Department in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Mrs Tariro Chipepera said improving the livehoods of women requires legal and policy reforms.
She added that this will not require only leaders to act, but the whole populations to make necessary changes for a carbon-neutral world.
“Improving the lives of women and girls in rural areas requires robust legal and policy reforms like the newely implemented Gender Action Plan (GAP) that will see their (women) inclusion in decisions that affect their lives.
“One of the most effective ways to achieve progress on the threats posed by climate change is addressing gender inequality,” Mrs Chipepera has said.
She added that empowered women have greater capacity to respond to climate change and they play important roles in adopting low-carbon technologies, spreading knowledge about climate change, and urging action.
