The adverse effects of climate change and the unprecedented natural resource depletion pose serious threats to food security and nutrition, especially for small-scale food producers. Rural women have more limited access to productive resources, services, education and employment opportunities while experiencing, excessive workloads and limited decision-making power.
The work burden of fetching water and collecting firewood usually falls on women and girls, who have to travel long distances to fulfill the needs of their families. Firewood and water collection exposes women to the risk of physical and sexual violence.
Former director general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation José Graziano da Silva once remarked that there is no inclusive and sustainable way forward for Africa without women, youth and agriculture.
Indeed, agriculture offers Africa, and Tanzania in particular, an opportunity for economic prosperity, food security, poverty eradication, skills transfer and economic empowerment for women and girls.
But all this will come to naught if governments do not do enough to build women’s resilience against climate change.
The science has been shown to have the most devastating effect on agriculture. In large parts of Africa, scientists forecast farm output to decline by between 30 and 50 per cent by 2030 due to changing climatic conditions.
Throughout much of the continent, agriculture is threatened by multiple issues, ranging from population increase to urbanisation and industrialisation, to the sub-division of land and degraded resources
Women disproportionately bear much of the brunt given their traditional roles as tillers of the land and their recognition as the backbone of the family unit.
In Tanzania, the state is looking at improving food security and nutrition, as highlighted in a number of current and past economic blueprints, while it has now started to ramp up funding for women in agriculture through ring-fenced facilities.
What this means is that current and future changes in climate now call for greater astuteness in development planning to minimise risk and bolster food production and security, particularly targeting women.
Six years ago, former African Union (AU) Commission chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had some interesting insights on what governments should do (or would have done) to help women cope with climate change.
In a letter delivered in January 2014, but set during AU’s centenary in 2063, Dr Zuma calls to the spirit of legendary Pan-Africanist Dr Kwame Nkrumah, informing him that by adopting forward looking strategies, Africa had “refused to bear the brunt of climate change.”
Dr Dlamini-Zuma made specific reference to the hazards of climate change on women in agriculture, Africa’s mainstay.
By 2063, and in Dr Dlamini-Zuma’s eyes, women are seen to have managed to address the multi-layered challenges of climate change “through the intelligent application of centuries-old indigenous knowledge, acquired and conserved by African women who have tended crops all seasons.”
For that to happen, both the African Union and its representative governments, should, however, take specific steps to build capacity and resilience among women in line with the long-term goals of Agenda 2063 – the AU’s development plan for the next half century.
The AU is already funding women-led projects in the areas of environment and climate change, providing grants of up to $25 000 to African governments or NGOs for projects that can prove an ability to empower women in water management, agriculture and energy.
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