As civil society, activists and governments gather in Dubai this year for COP28 from 30 Nov – 12 Dec, for the first time Health, Relief, Recovery and Peace Day will be marked on December 3. This is an important inclusion, as climate change is exacerbating health and humanitarian crises around the world, requiring targeted action to build resilience in people who may not have been as vulnerable before the climate crisis.
Climate change exacerbates both violent and non-violent conflicts. This exacerbation is particularly visible in areas where populations rely heavily on shared natural resources for their lives and livelihoods, and where climate impacts lead to shortages. In decisions made about access to and use of these natural resources, women are rarely consulted or included in any meaningful way, and their leadership is largely absent. This is an omission with many negative consequences. For example, women make up 43% of the world's agricultural workforce, and excluding their voices can lead to inefficient use of resources and discrimination.
In Mali, CARE's GENRE+ (Gender+) project works with women whose communities are at the crossroads of conflict and climate change: faced with increasingly extreme weather events, they are witnessing a steady degradation of natural resources that is increasing tensions within and between communities. In the run-up to Health, Relief, Recovery and Peace Day, GENRE+ provides us with an example of work on the link between climate, conflict and gender. It also shows how difficult it can be.
Climate, conflict and gender
Located in sub-Saharan Africa, Mali is on the front line of climate change. Rising temperatures are leading to increased flooding and drought, which have a direct impact on the quality and availability of natural resources such as water, timber and agricultural land. Increased competition for dwindling resources exacerbates tensions and conflicts between groups who depend on them for their lives and livelihoods. In turn, these resource constraints and increased conflict can exacerbate negative gender norms. GENRE+ is working to counter this by strengthening the voice and leadership of women in climate-affected areas of Mali's Segou region, helping them to take the lead and participate meaningfully in decisions about natural resource management.
Our initial assessments show that conflict and climate impacts have had a considerable impact on food security and livelihoods in the region, increasing tensions over access to resources. Women more often reported being excluded from participation in conflict resolution mechanisms, even though they reported facing more conflicts due to obstacles related to land ownership and access to resources.
By adapting CARE's Women Lead in Emergencies (Women Lead) approach to this complex Segou context, we help women influence the decisions that impact their lives, with Women Lead transferring power and resources directly to women participants, so that they can recognize the most relevant interventions for themselves. Success is defined by the participating women, and they choose to focus on the actions they feel will be most useful in amplifying their voices and facilitating meaningful inclusion in decision-making related to natural resource management.
Kadiatou Coulibaly is the VSLA President, Toukoro village, Bla circle, Ségou region and is a participant in the Women Lead in Emergencies programme. She told us:
"We’ve recently started working on the Women Lead in Emergencies approach, and together we have identified the obstacles that stand in our way such as lack of literacy, household chores, women's lack of self-confidence and men's lack of information about decision-making bodies.
"Today, we are choosing our destiny, by opting to improve literacy among our WLIE group members, by building each other's confidence through women-to-women awareness-raising, and by advocating for our rights to community leaders, including participation in natural resource management and community adaptation to the effects of climate change. We are determined to turn these challenges into opportunities, and we believe in a future where our voices count and we are the architects of our own success."
These women, along with other power-holders and representatives of marginalised groups in their communities, will then use CARE's community-based adaptation planning approach to determine strategies for climate resilience and conflict resolution related to shared resources such as water resources, agricultural land and grazing lands.
This is a new way forward for communities where 60% of households face two to four conflicts each year. Although these disagreements are rarely violent, as may be the case in other insurgency-ridden regions of Mali, surveys show that women and ethnic minorities are more dissatisfied than men from more powerful groups. However, women have also been described as "peace-builders" in community life in the Segou region, and GENRE+ aims to facilitate a transformation where women are able to take the lead in their own cultural and livelihood contexts.
Local leadership
CARE in Mali is working in partnership with our local partner AMAPROS (Association Malienne pour la Promotion du Sahel) on this project.
As many advocates emphasize every year at COP meetings, local and national ownership and leadership are vitally important to the sustainability of climate resilience efforts. This is a core principle of CARE's community-based approaches to women's voices in climate leadership and adaptation, and informs all aspects of GENDER+.
Mamoudou Kanté, AMAPROS advisor on GENRE+, says:
"The implementation of projects and programmes by local organisations is an important factor for sustainability, both in terms of responding to the needs of communities and strengthening the local leadership of civil society organisations. The project's work in the areas of both climate resilience and women's economic empowerment will be strengthened with AMAPROS, as we are a local organisation that has been working in collaboration with local communities in the Segou region for more then a decade.’’
The GENRE+ team will also work with communities, especially women, to incorporate recommendations from the village level into local laws and policies, in particular the Social, Economic and Cultural Development Plan (PDSEC) formulated at the municipal level. Progress requires constant advocacy and effort on the part of community members, and can often seem difficult in a context faced with the tangible impacts of climate and conflict, but GENRE+ enables women to make a significant contribution to community-wide transformation.
