Inclusion of gender in Africa's climate change policies and strategies

Abstract

Concerns of climate change impacts and adaptations have continued to receive much attention in both local and international climate change debate. It is now understood that the challenge of climate change cannot be addressed as a standalone issue but within different social, economic, and environmental contexts. It is currently acknowledged that Africa’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is insignificant. Except for South Africa, all the countries in Africa contribute below the global average of 3.5 m/ton of CO2 per capita. However, Africa is very vulnerable to climate change given its low capacity to respond and adapt. Furthermore, progress in enhancing better understanding of gender variations on the impacts and adaptation to climate change has been relatively limited. The differentiated impacts of climate change at local level add to the complexities of developing gender sensitive response strategies. With the endorsement of the Paris Climate agreement of 2015, African countries are now gearing up to implement international and national climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. While progress has been in developing polices and strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is critical to ensure that these do not lead to further inequalities during implementation. This chapter, therefore, aims at reviewing climate change related policies and strategies in East and West Africa through a gendered lens. The countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania in East Africa, and Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa. Drawing upon a common framework/guideline, we examined commonality in policies, while recognizing the complexity in the social, economic and ecological systems of each country. The chapter further assesses the importance of integrating and mainstreaming gender into Africa’s national adaptations plans of actions (NAPAs), and Intended Nationally Distributed Contributions (INDCs), and the need for better gender oriented climate change policies, programs and plans.