Road to COP26: African women and girls meet to consolidate position ahead of Glasgow

22 October 2021:  African Women and Girls activists held a consultative dialogue forum – Feminist Action on Climate Justice: From Paris to COP26 – on 22nd October 2021 at Double Tree Hotel, Nairobi to consolidate their positions ahead of the 26th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP) to be held at Glasgow, United Kingdom next month.

The hybrid event in which attendance was both online and in-person, was organized by Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) and the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), with the financial support of Women’s Environment and  Development Organization (WEDO).

The pre-COP 26 event was designed to bring together African women and girls who will be attending COP26 in Glasgow, to connect them with one another, consolidate African women’s and girls’ position towards COP 26 taking to considerations commitments made in Paris Generation Equality forum and strategize on how we can influence COP 26 outcome.

The session contributed to popularizing “A Feminist Agenda for People and Planet: Principles and Recommendations for a Global Feminist Economic Justice Agenda”. This report promotes the understanding of these Principles and Recommendations of Global Economic Justice:

• An economy that shifts from the disproportionate emphasis on being a “productive economy” into a feminist decolonial green new economy
• An economy that puts the primacy of human rights and well-being of the planet over the primacy of growth and GDP
• An economy that promotes an equitable and just global trade order
• An economy that redistributes wealth and resources
• An economy that promotes debt justice and a new structure of sovereign debt
• A global economic governance architecture that is democratic

Keynote Presentations

Here are summaries from the keynote presentations:

If we do not speak at COP26, no one will do it for us: Memory Kachambwa, Executive Director, The African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET)

From increased floods in the SAHEL, to drought and food crisis in Mozambique, African is facing serious loss of livelihoods, especially for women, girls and young people, who are disproportionately affected.

Africa’s COP26 feminist climate agenda must be based on sound understanding of the African climate crisis, issues and solutions.

“It is important for us as African climate activists to be clear about our priorities -what are we asking of our governments that are going to COP26, do we know our delegation, what should we be asking from our delegates, and what are our main asks at COP26?”- Memory Kachambwa

Beyond COP26, the outputs and outcomes of this consultative dialogue inform future Feminist Action for Climate Justice activities – including Agenda 2063, Agenda 2030, Generation Equality Forum feminist climate actions, The sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) to take place from 14 to 25 March 2022, whose priority theme will be on climate justice: “Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes”.

African women and girls must continue to speak up, connect and be part of the national and global discussions to demonstrate to policy makers what the gender issue is on climate crisis and practical solutions. The gender agenda must become a priority when it comes to climate action. Push for commitment locally implement actions, including the Gender Action Plan enacted in Madrid; push for local Gender Advocates/Focal Persons to advocate for resolution of issues such as Climate Finance, Mitigation, Adaptation and Loss and Damage are included in upcoming COP and other related meetings.

Influencing COP26 feminist agenda: Nisreen Elsaim, Environmental and Climate Activist and Youth Envoy on Climate Change to the UN Secretary General

Making the case for Africa to be considered as a region with special needs and circumstances such as high poverty rates, high population growth, high percentage of young people under the age of 18 requires effective negotiations at Glasgow.

If women are to succeed in influencing the negotiations at COP26, they must thoroughly understand the negotiation process and how to connect effectively with negotiators. According to Nisreen, negotiation is a complex technical process with political overtones:

“You have to read how…and sometimes you have to read material up to the early 2000s to understand what has been happening and the decisions arrived at. Young females often do not have money to attend such meetings and yet the decisions made at COP meetings determine what the priorities will be for the following year. In our culture, a young girl cannot just stay with anyone, so being accommodated oversees can be a great challenge. “ – Nisreen Elsaim. 

Nisreen Elsaim, who is a negotiator in COP26 says many women are just trying to survive and need to be supported to equally contribute to the negotiations. More young females and women are needed in COP meetings. 

At least 10 young females from Sudan, her native country, will be participating in the negotiations at Glasgow. There is, however, need to build the capacity of young people, particularly the girls to participate in global decision-making processes.

From Paris To Glasgow – Did Generation Equality deliver for Africa: What lessons for COP 26?: Salina Sanou, Head of Programmes, PACJA

The Generation Equality (GE) provides a foundation on which this Consultative Forum is held.  GE is global forum for gender equality convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, in partnership with youth and civil society, was designed to invigorate the Beijing spirit and galvanize bold, ambitious, and game changing commitments towards gender equality.

The Feminist Action for Climate Justice (PACJA and WEDO are leads) and Economic Justice and Rights (FEMNENT is a lead) are two of GE’s 6 thematic areas.

By the end of Paris Forum 30 June to 2 July 2021Governments, Civil Society Organisations and private sector committed over USD40 Billion. Out of the 55 African countries, only 31 countries submitted their commitments. Kenya has the most commitment makers (42), followed by Nigeria (38), Tanzania (19), DRC (17), Cameroon (19) and South Africa (21). Countries with least commitment makers, one (1) each, include South Sudan, Guinea, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Morocco, Mauritania, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea.”

Furthermore;

• Governments and public sector institutions committed USD21 Billion in gender equality investments
• The private sector committed USD13 Billion
• Philanthropy committed USD 4.5 Billion
• UN entities, international and regional organisations committed USD1.3 Billion
• Based on commitments submitted in the platform, governments and stakeholders in African committed only USD1 Billion, half of which was committed by one government, the Government of Uganda

Unfortunately, only 16 African governments submitted their commitments – Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tunisia, Somalia, and Rwanda.

For Rwanda and Somalia, only government submitted commitments; no civil societies or other actor submitted their commitments.

“It is heart-breaking to note that no single government explicitly committed to advance Feminist Action for Climate Justice, in fact, out of all commitments, Feminist Action for Climate Justice had less commitments despite the fact that climate crisis is a tragedy of our generation.” – Salina Sanou

PACJA’s two commitments on the PARIS agreement included: (a) Development and implementation of locally-led initiatives like the “Integrated Tujiinue Tena Project” at Kilili Market in Meru County aims at building resilience of local communities ravaged by COVID-19 pandemic and effects of climate change. The communities are linked with the private sector who private support in rebuilding their livelihood sources through developing of value chains. For instance, BIDCO company has supported the local community including women in the county to develop sunflower value chains. (b) PACJA is also implementing The Nairobi Summer School for Climate Justice, which trains youth, men and women to acquire climate justice skills to implement at community level. 

PACJA hopes that the African-level commitments will be honoured.

PACJA is one of the civil society leaders in Feminist Action on Climate Justice Action Coalition under Generation Equality Forum and convenor of African civil societies towards COP26. PACJA engagement in both Action Coalition and COP 26 aims to ensure climate actions embodies both feminists’ values and principles and African women’s and girls’ aspirations and ambitions. To that end,