Why women need to actively engage in conversations on climate change

In many Ugandan societies, for example, our mothers and girls are responsible for household energy, food, and water, and care for the young and elderly. Women have to travel further to obtain daily supplies, leaving less time for paid work and potentially exposing them to greater risk to their personal safety.

Damali Chesang, a farmer in Ngenge Sub-county, Kween District, is experiencing the wrath of climate change. She says hunger is biting almost every household in the area.

“We hired five acres of land at Shs500,000 but we have completely lost everything. This year is horrible. The heat is too much and we are struggling to access water,’’ she said.

Chesang and her husband now survive on a motorcycle that the family head rides. The family of four has settled down to having one meal a day.

“If he doesn’t ride the motorcycle, we won’t have anything to eat. We have consumed all the food we had stored from last season. On a tough day, we take porridge. Our two sons don’t go back to school after lunch when they find no food at home,’’ she adds.

Destruction of crops

In Kabachirya Village, Ngenge, Esther Chebet, a mother of seven, has lost hope in crop production. “All the maize dried up and the community is staring at famine and drought. The irrigation scheme in Ngenge is a rice project and women are not allowed to plant maize, which is our stable food.  They also charge a fee to join the farming group, but we have no money,’’ she says.

Chebet says access to water is the biggest problem women face. “I have to walk for two kilometres with my daughter to fetch water from the nearest borehole. We only have one borehole in the entire village and over 300 households compete to use it,’’ she says.

In Kabachirya, the scorching sun has dried up the streams in the area. Women spend more than five hours lining up to fetch water at the only borehole. “My children are also sent from their primary school to come and scramble for water with us at the borehole,’’ Chebet adds. 

Ngenge Sub-county in Soi County has a population of 13,000 people, according to a 2020 Uganda Bureau of Statistics population projection. The community survives on farming and animal rearing, but the lack of water has left women more miserable.

In Mbale City, Betty Nambafu used to vend fruits to support her family. However, she quit the business in February when the heat became unbearable in the city. She has since resorted to sorting kaveera and plastic bottles in River Nabuyonga for sale, which is exposing her life to hygiene-related diseases.

“I sort polythene bags from diapers dumped on the river. I had to stop the fruit business because the heat was too much and I was making losses.   Now, I can sell kaveera and plastic bottles to sustain my family,” she says.

Nambafu is ignorant of the danger associated with getting exposed to diapers and plastic waste. According to health experts, diapers are hazardous to human life. People who come in contact with them get exposed to viruses such as gastrointestinal, hepatitis, salmonella, and norovirus.

Plastics on the other hand pose another danger to Nambafu’s life. A 2021 study by researchers from Australia’s University of Newcastle revealed that during hot temperatures, plastics melt and release chemicals that cause cancer. Nambafu and many other women who have quit farming as a result of climate change have no option, but to fend for their families by engaging in the plastic business.

In the border district of Busia, crop failure has become a common phenomenon. Judith Nekesa, a resident of Bukhunya Village in Lunyo Sub-county, Busia District, says climate change has affected the patterns for planting crops.

“As a farmer, I am affected by the way we have changed the time we plant crops due to the unpredictable rains. This has led to food scarcity and hunger,” Nekesa told Saturday Monitor in an interview. Nekesa adds that before climate change affected livelihood, they used to know when to plant, and harvest and the year would have two planting seasons, with predictable rain and sunshine.

“February was for planting, we would harvest in May or early June, then the second season would start in August, so we would not suffer from hunger. We always had food because of stable seasons,” Nekesa says. She advises fellow farmers to plant more trees so as to beat the effects of climate change.

In Bwaise, a suburb of Kampala City, climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of floods. Flooding affects all locals in the area, but women are more vulnerable due to their low socio-economic status, fewer opportunities, and responsibilities that confine them at home. 

Jane Babirye, a resident of Bwaise 3 Parish, says: “In March, my family was left homeless after a heavy downpour. I always look for relatives with my children for temporary shelter when the area floods. The water also destroyed my property.’’

The high population growth and incidents of extreme heat have also led to the scramble for water in Bwaise. Babirye says women’s hygiene is at stake.

“Life becomes difficult, particularly for girls managing their menstruation cycle,” she says. A 2019 study by Lifewater International, a  non-profit organisation, its indicates that safe water and hygiene for women can reduce the risk of infections and death for infants and mothers by up to 25 percent.

Climate action

According to a March 8, article titled: Five reasons why climate action needs women by UN Climate Change News, half of the world’s population is comprised of women and girls, yet they are often left out of the conversation when it comes to climate change.

Climate change experts and women leaders say if we want to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need everyone on board. That means more women and girls need to be empowered and involved.

Ms Patience Poni Ayikoru, a lawyer and social justice founder of Femme Talk West Nile, says climate change effects have caused domestic violence and left women more vulnerable to hunger in rural areas.

“Extreme heat has dried crops in gardens, so women have been left to rely on men to provide for families. This has caused conflicts leading to domestic violence. We need to include more women in climate action so that we create a more sustainable and equitable future for all,’’ she says.

Uganda urgently needs to build climate resilience in communities. The UN reports that communities are more successful in resilience and capacity-building strategies when women are part of the planning process. Research has also shown that women are the first responders to natural disasters. It is imperative for local leaders to bring on board women in community planning and disaster response efforts. Not all hope is lost because some women and girls are being empowered to contribute to and benefit from climate action.

Catherine Nimusiima, the programme manager at Acttogether, a non-governmental organisation, says they are working with vulnerable groups of people such as women and children who have been affected by floods and extreme heat.

She says her organisation is part of a partnership with Daraja East Africa Scale Up Programme, spanning six cities in East and Greater Horn of Africa.

Daraja, which means ‘ bridge’  in Swahili, is a service and partnership that improves weather and climate information services, including early warnings of extreme weather with a particular focus on vulnerable communities based in informal settlements.

“We are giving timely information to the vulnerable groups in Bwaise (a Kampala suburb) because it’s a flood-prone area. Bwaise receives a lot of water from the hills of Kampala. We warn them (women and children) on impending floods and strategies that mitigate too much heat,’’ Nimusiima says.

“If we are to build stronger and more resilient communities that are better equipped to face the challenges of climate change, we must put women at the forefront,’’ she adds.

The project, which started in May in Kampala City, is being extended to 35,000 people in the area.

UN global strategy

The Gender Action Plan agreed by governments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls for women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in the international climate process and to ensure a prominent role for women in decision-making and in climate action.

Uganda needs to actively involve key stakeholders in deliberating on how we can achieve gender parity in local, national, and international climate policy and decision-making roles.

Sustainable Development Goal 13 also champions adaption strategies to climate change.  The official mission statement of the goal is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change impacts”.