Climate change threatens to drive 160 million women into poverty

ARUSHA: A TOTAL of 160 million women and girls will be pushed into poverty globally due to worse-case climate scenario and climate change by 2050.

According to the UN Women Chief of Economic Empowerment, Dr Jemimah Njuki said during the Climate Forum and 35th Meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Arusha on Wednesday.

The meeting was officiated by the Vice President Dr Philip Mpango. Dr Njuki noted that by the year 2050, it is projected that more women and girls will face food insecurity as consequences of climate change.

According to Dr Njuki, only 3 percent of climaterelated development finance has gender equality as a principal objective.

“Women and girls are taking climate action around the globe by adopting energy efficiency in households, protecting precious natural resources in communities, and advancing sustainability in board rooms,” said Dr Njuki.

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She added”20 of 600 billion dollars invested in climate-related projects aims to combat gender inequalities and promote women-led solutions.” According to her, climate crisis is not gender-neutral phenomenon as climate change exacerbates gender inequalities worldwide and undermines women rights, resources and their resilience.

She added that there is a need to promote reforms of the climate finance architecture to meet the needs of all countries and people and ensure that women, girls and gender-diverse people are not left behind.

According to her, reforms should reduce the vulnerability of developing countries to financial shocks while increasing their ability to meet climate, development and gender equality goals.

In addition, Dr Njuki noted that there is also a need to identify innovative climate financing models to achieve gender equality outcomes, amplifying good practices and channeling financing to local and national women’s organisations.

“We also need to strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms to monitor, track and improve gender-responsive climate financing and its impacts,” she noted.