Greenovations Africa 2: Bridging unpaid care work and climate financing to empower women green entrepreneurs and boost climate action in Africa

 

Women occupy a central role in climate action through green entrepreneurship and environmental stewardship. Green entrepreneurial ventures often extend the societal domestic care role of women to environmental stewardship through sustainable agriculture, waste management or renewable energy initiatives. Women-led enterprises account for the majority of self-employment in Africa. However, women’s capacity to fully engage as entrepreneurs is often severely hampered by the effects of unpaid care responsibilities and the inefficacy of current support mechanisms, including access to finance, in their business journey in green sectors.

This project seeks to advance women’s climate action by exploring ways to recognize and reward the burden of unpaid care work undertaken by women green entrepreneurs in Africa and Latin America. It will map tangible solutions for unlocking green finance and will build upon the more established body of knowledge in Latin America around the climate-care nexus, connecting women entrepreneurs to climate finance options relating to unpaid care work.

The project will develop a model to quantify the contribution of women green entrepreneurs to climate action and aim to reduce the gender gap in access to climate finance through the co-designing of gender-just and care-work-sensitive solutions with women green entrepreneurs and enterprise support organizations. The project will contribute new actionable research on best practices and success factors to overcome market failures in tapping into climate finance to simultaneously advance climate action, gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in select countries in Africa.