Legal empowerment of rural women to better manage climate change impacts in Senegal

This action research aims to establish the conditions for effective legal empowerment approaches to improve the inclusion and participation of rural women in actions to combat the effects of climate change in order to protect their livelihoods in highly conservative contexts. Adopting an analytical framework focused on human rights, gender and capacity building, the research will be implemented in coastal, rural and peri-urban areas of Senegal. It aims to propose a model of legal empowerment that improves local governance while seeking to address structural challenges related to gender inequalities and the systematic exclusion of women in decision-making processes to counter the negative effects of climate change, especially in coastal areas. A capacity development plan to implement behaviour change by training women and community leaders will be developed. Based on these findings, a proven empowerment model will be developed to disseminate at the national, sub-regional and regional levels.

This project is linked to the cohort of projects of the "Closing the Justice Gap" initiative, which seeks to improve understanding of the conditions and legal empowerment approaches that can contribute to structural change, especially for women and marginalized groups.