A CONTINENTAL CALL TO CENTRE WOMEN IN AFRICA’S CLIMATE FUTURE
To achieve just and transformative climate solutions, we call on all stakeholders, governments, donors, multilateral institutions, civil society, and the private sector to take urgent and deliberate action.
It is time to move resources, shift power and put African women at the centre of climate solutions.
- Prioritize Gender-Just Climate Policies:
Commit to integrating gender justice at the center of all climate policies, frameworks, and negotiations, ensuring that women’s rights, leadership, and lived realities shape decision-making processes. - Unlock Direct Funding for Women-Led Initiatives:
Increase and simplify access to climate finance for grassroots and women-led organizations by establishing flexible, transparent, adaptable, non-technical, and gender-responsive funding mechanisms. - Secure Women’s Land and Resource Rights:
Promote gender-responsive land reforms and enforce policies that guarantee women’s equal access to land, natural resources, and productive assets as a foundation for climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods. - Recognize and Invest in Indigenous Knowledge:
Value, protect, and scale indigenous and local knowledge systems led by women as critical solutions for climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem restoration. - Ensure Meaningful Participation and Leadership:
Guarantee the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women especially young women and marginalized groups in decision making, particularly in climate governance at local, national, regional, and global levels. - Strengthen Movement Building and Solidarity:
Support feminist movements and networks, including the Africa Climate Justice Movement (ACJM) with structural long-term investments, to foster collective advocacy, shared learning, and coordinated action for systemic change. - Promote Accountability and Transparency:
- We call for real measurable actions beyond promises and speeches because the futures of African Women and children are not negotiable as such we need a declaration of justice and COMMITMENTS TO BUILDING A CLIMATE RESILIENT AFRICA.
Establish mechanisms to track commitments on gender and climate justice with robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks, ensuring accountability to affected communities, that climate finance reach their intended beneficiaries, and measurable progress toward equitable outcomes.
Closing Statement
The climate crisis is not gender-neutral, and neither are its solutions. A just transition requires the inseparable twins-gender justice and climate justice! The time to act is now by centering African women’s voices, leadership, and rights, we can drive inclusive, just, and lasting climate action for all.
