I am Generation Equality: Wanjuhi Njoroge, climate activist and entrepreneur from the foot of Mount Kenya

Billions of people across the world stand on the right side of history every day. They speak up, take a stand, mobilize, and take big and small actions to advance women’s rights. This is Generation Equality.

Date: Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Originally published on UN Women's regional website for Africa

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Three things you can do to increase women’s participation in climate issues:

Educate and create awareness at the community level.
Ensure climate action is not punitive, it does not undermine livelihoods.
Seek women’s knowledge – traditional/indigenous knowledge remains untapped, we must be deliberately inclusive to address climate issues.

I am Generation Equality because...

I grew up surrounded by very strong women; my grandmothers, my mother and the resilient women of my village. The rural woman in Kenya often surmounts the unimaginable to simply stand on her own two feet - I always wonder how much she could achieve with a level playing field. These women remain my greatest motivation. I am the daughter of an activist; as primary school teacher, my mother was among the organizers of the landmark teacher’s strike of 1997. I also grew up with a tree-hugger for a father, I’ve lost count of the number of trees I’ve planted!

Urgent actions for equality

There are many urgent issues, but I would narrow it down to two; climate change and quality leadership. Nature is revenging fast and it’s rough! Kenya’s constitution affords the rights to access to clean air and, to have the environment protected for current and future generations. It has a number of Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments to climate change but we are the only country in Africa that has a climate change act that has never been implemented.

The COVID-19 pandemic also exposed us to glaring leadership gaps globally. There’s an urgent need for the world to nurture a generation of leaders who lead with heart. You need leaders with a heart who prioritize people and planet over profits to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.

About the author

Susan Ferguson is the UN Women Representative for India. Ms. Ferguson joined UN Women in 2017, after a long career in international development. She has lived and worked in South Africa, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, and has experience working in grass-roots development agencies; establishing and managing social services; working within Local, State and Federal Government in Australia on social policy and social programmes.

Thousands of Indians have been affected by the latest COVID-19 outbreak. Not only those suffering from the disease, but also those who care for them.

Just as with the first wave and as with countless disasters before them, women have taken on the heavy burden of caring for the sick and finding ways to meet their family’s basic needs. The combination of illness, unpaid care, economic slowdown, lack of access to financing for female entrepreneurs, and domestic violence has left many women unable to return to work.

Much of this is attributable to a long history of seeing the work women do as unimportant in the “real world” of the economy, and as unworthy of value in the household. A recent Oxford report shows that Indian women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every day — a contribution of at least ₹19 trillion a year to the Indian economy.[1] Yet in India, duties performed at home have historically not been considered “work,” due to norms of gender and caste.

If these trends aren’t reversed, it will have a devastating impact on the economy while further exacerbating gender inequality. For this generation of women to emerge relatively unscathed from this pandemic and be able to return to the workforce, we must invest seriously in the livelihoods of women and girls in our country.

India has now lost over 300,000 people to the virus and that number continues to rise as the country struggles to deal with a new, deadly variant that has overwhelmed its healthcare capacity. Rural parts of the country are reliant on the incredible dedication of front-line women workers: Anganwadi workers, ASHA workers (Accredited Social Health Activist), community health workers and nurses, along with civil society organisers and volunteers.

The intersection of climate change and gender

Climate change and gender are intertwined because women are disproportionately affected, and more vulnerable to environmental disasters and extreme weather events. In Kenya, women are less economically empowered than men with little access to land and property rights. They are more likely to live in poverty after environmental disasters and displacements. Displacement and migration caused by crises also exposes them to an increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence and psychological torture. It is worth noting that this is not a one shoe fits all scenario. For instance, issues of vulnerability that are faced by urban women are much more linked to issues around pollution, waste and water management, whereas in rural areas, it’s more about agriculture.

I feel that that there is not enough action. Conversations are in cosy rooms, but we need to get out. I do a lot of work with rural communities. Education is so important; I am only here because I had an education. In some areas you’ll find the only job for a man is to marry women – and the women’s job is to have children. I heard a story of a mother of eight who tried to access family planning, she was beaten. This is why we need to have these conversations, and this is where these conversation needs to happen.

Wanjuhi Njoroge, 31, was raised in Nyeri County, Kenya, in a rural town that sits at the foot of Mount Kenya. Passionate about her community, she established a library in her village in 2017 and supporting local farmers to move to more sustainable farming practices. In 2019 she joined the Kenyan national chapter of the African Women Leader’s Network (AWLN), an action-oriented movement of African women leaders to transform sustainable peace, security and development issues on the continent