WOMEN AND THE GREEN ECONOMY IN AFRICA
Gender-Responsive Climate Action and Green & Blue Economies is one of UN Women’s Gender Equality Accelerators to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment. Climate Change has a critical impact on communities across sub-Saharan Africa and impacts women and girls disproportionally. The region includes some of the countries and areas most vulnerable to climate change in the world, notably the Sahel. Women and girls in Africa play an essential role in climate change mitigation and adaptation through their role in key sectors such as agriculture or through the sustainable management of natural resources and the conservation of ecosystems.
In the coming decades, as the transition to the green economy unfolds in the region and economies develop low-carbon emission development paths, green jobs will be created in areas such as energy, agriculture, forestry, waste management, transport, and construction. It is vital that women have access to the opportunities this transition creates. In Africa, UN Women works with governments, regional institutions, women’s groups, civil society and the private sector to mitigate the disproportionated impact of climate change on women and girls, to support women’s in taking a central role in climate change action, and to ensure that women share in the opportunities created by the transition to the green economy.
UN Women’s Regional Office for West and Central Africa, in collaboration with ECOWAS, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and women’s organizations and networks across the region, works to promote policies to improve women’s access to green jobs, green entrepreneurship opportunities and green finance under the regional policy programme ‘Gender and the Green Transition in West and Central Africa’. You can find more information about the programme here.
