Mainstream climate change in development policies

concerns such as HIV and Aids, war, financial recession and disease.
Indeed, for poor developing countries the story gets worse, rampant poverty and hunger make efforts to deal with the effects of climate change a nightmare.
The feminisation of climate change
In Zimbabwe where average temperatures have risen 0,7 degrees Celsius since the early 1900s, according to the local Meteorological Services Department, and where rainfall patterns have become increasingly unpredictable, erratic and droughts frequent, climate change has hit hard, particularly the agriculture sector.
For several years, food security has been seriously and successfully threatened with devastating impacts on the country’s poor and vulnerable.
One such group of people has been women (and child-headed households) in remote rural areas, whom almost too often now, are punished for sins they did not commit.
Many widowed old grandmothers fending for HIV orphans in Zimbabwe’s rural areas have come face to face with the impact of climate change, which has drastically reduced production of maize, the staple diet.
The worst affected regions are in the drier parts of the country in the Midlands, Masvingo and Matebeleland provinces where precipitation has declined 15 percent since 1960.
The struggle for food, even survival for women in these areas is so serious. It cannot be any less where access to finance is very limited and the provision and availability of clean safe drinking water is unreliable.
Most women are forced to walk very long distances on foot to fetch water everyday, and firewood, which is a major energy source but now a scarce commodity due to increased Government control, ostensibly to curb deforestation.
Mainstreaming climate change in
development policies way to go
Lack of adequate preparedness from central Government to deal with the effects of climate change such as droughts, which often result in acute food shortages and hunger compounds the deplorable situation that most women headed families face in rural areas.
However, Government must start pursuing a deliberate policy of mainstreaming climate change into the country’s rural development policies. This would be the building block for guaranteeing a future of socio-economic development, which is climate change resilient.
It would also create a buffer zone for poor women and child-headed households in Zimbabwe’s remote rural areas, who bear the impact of climate change the most.
As a matter of fact, the feminisation of climate change is now a major developmental challenge that authorities must tackle head on.
By far, the downstream effects of climate change and global warming are disproportionately spread to predominantly harass women, who constitute 52 percent of the population, as compared to men.
Of this figure, 80 percent live in communal rural areas and are structurally disadvantaged.
There are no accurate statistics measuring the impacts of climate change on women-led households in Zimbabwe. But historical inequalities, lack of access to funding and dependence on subsistence farming, which is prone to frequent and extreme climate events like droughts, floods and cyclones, have increased women’s vulnerability.
In a paper released last November titled “Gender and Climate Change: Three Things You Should Know”, the World Bank underscored the importance of gender equality for effective and equitable action on climate change.
The paper also highlighted that women were influential in determining the amount of carbons released into the atmosphere through the decisions they make. It said women’s choices around cooking fuels, cooking technology and the foods to cook all have an important bearing on greenhouse gas emissions.
Minister of Women’s Affairs and Gender Development Dr Olivia Muchena said climate change multiplied the burden of producing food on women, as recurrent droughts and other climate vagaries increased in frequency, disrupting the food production chain.
She said hunger was a key threat to women in Zimbabwe adding that climate risks heightened the challenge for the provision of adequate clean safe drinking water.
“While we cannot talk on behalf of other ministries responsible for climate change mitigatory actions, we encourage women to participate in community based projects that limit its impacts,” Minister Muchena said in interview last week.
“We also promote the growing of drought resistant crops like sorghum, millets, food processing and preservation among women and communities. The answer is irrigation and appropriate technology driven food production.”
From whence comes my help?
There are other ready but infrequent helpers-NGOs and other civic society groups.
Sometimes, these organisations have changed the stories for those women affected.
In some cases the Government of Zimbabwe, which is facing a shortage of 1,2 million tonnes of maize in 2012 intervenes through the provision of grain to hunger-stricken families in rural areas but not specifically to women.
At policy level, however, mitigation and adaptation efforts to climate change remain very weak and even after such interventions, the long-term prospects for women handling effects of a rapidly changing climate remain dire.
Clearly, a lot of work needs and has to be done to cushion vulnerable and poor women from the deadly impacts of climate change, particularly where it concerns food production.
It is crucial to strengthen capacity for developing adaptation and mitigation strategies for rural communities, as they are mostly dangerously exposed to the impacts of a changing climate.
God is faithful.