COP26 negotiators urged to reconsider climate financing for rural women

November 12, 2021| Governments and civil society organisations have been urged to make long-term commitments to support equitable financing of programme and project interventions targeted at rural women living in climate-hit regions.

In a side-event organised by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) and the Glasgow Caledonia University at COP26, Glasgow, United Kingdom, African women participants observed that global financial systems needed adjustment to enable women at the grassroots to access women access the much-needed financing for their climate-adaptation initiatives.

The women also noted that while it was imperative for the developed countries to meet their USD100 billion-a-year climate finance commitment, the global financial systems must also strive to loosen existing climate finance measures that make it difficult for women access to financial support for community resilience-building grassroot projects and programmes.

Salina Sanou, Head of Programmes at the PACJA said the current climate finance guidelines are so stringent that they do not allow women access needed financing for their initiatives. She also observed that the pastoralist communities are the most hit by the climate change impacts. “Their livestock are dying from drought related deaths, no water and no pasture,” she said.

Titilope Ngozi Akosa, a Nigerian Woman Climate Justice Advocate and PACJA Member of the Continental Executive Board, said women are not being listened to neither are they part of the teams designing climate change adaptation intervention strategies and plans.

“Women need to be consulted. Financial institutions must stop treating women as a homogenous group. World over, women continue to lead in all sectors including multi-billion dollar projects, as expatriates and in every professional area, yet financial institutions still classify all women and women-run projects as ‘un-bankable’, which is only fit for small grants,” she said.

Jacinta Rhoda Silakan from Kenyan-based Indigenous Information Network noted that women especially from the pastoralist communities, live in some of the harshest places in Africa. They spend hours in search of water and pasture for their livestock, not to mention firewood that is needed to cook for their families and have little time to attend to their families.

“Financial institutions are yet to apply separate conditions for commercial and community initiatives. They all face the same stringent conditions,” she said adding that while women from traditional communities may not have the needed capacities to meet climate financing conditions, they have alternative means to account for the grants, to prove that they can manage the financing received.

Titilope noted that in Sierra Leone, fisher folk communities who have suffered from flooding due to climate change are now using their indigenous knowledge to tap into mangrove as a natural resource. “Financial support for such initiatives has, however, not materialized.” She observed

Chinenye Anekwe from Solar Sister, Nigeria noted that although women groups often receive mentorship, training or capacity building from many global organisations, access to grants or financing to implement proposed initiatives has remained difficult due to barriers and conditions that cannot be meet or overcome by the women.

Garrett Philippe from the African Development Bank (AfDB) noted that the Bank usually receives financing, which have to be used according the donors’ priorities. Furthermore, one of the conditions set by the donors is that funds should be channeled to groups through intermediaries like banks based in the developed countries. The women participants opposed this idea of reaching out to women through intermediary banks based outside of Africa. “These banks do not know local context and would devise conditions not aligned with the grassroots,” said Salina. Titilope perceived that the Adaptation Committee was not representative and lacked women representation, a situation that is likely to contribute to perpetuating women inequalities.

The session was moderated by Tahseen Jafry, the Director of the Centre for Climate Justice of the Glasgow Caledonia University, Scotland.