Unlocking climate finance for women and girls in Africa

 

Women and girls are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, they are more likely to be employed in climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, experience higher levels of poverty, have lower access to information, and rely more on natural resources for their livelihoods. Women, particularly in rural areas of Africa, also bear the primary responsibility of domestic and care work, including child and elder care, water collection, gathering fuelwood, cooking and tending to domestic animals, which is most often unpaid. This often leaves women with limited resources and time to engage in income-generating activities.

Access to innovative, climate-smart advances such as clean cooking solutions (like improved cookstoves powered by solar energy) can help alleviate climate-change-related challenges. However, clean cooking businesses are often unable to serve broader markets across Africa owing to women’s limited financial standing, and lack of resources adds to the challenge. This project seeks to accelerate market solutions for the adoption of clean modern cooking solutions among low-income communities in climate-fragile settings by unlocking climate finance for the direct benefit of women and girls in Ghana and Kenya.

The project will support women and girls as end users of the finance ecosystem of private sector enterprises, investors and relevant stakeholders. It will also incorporate learnings from Asia to enable African enterprises to leverage climate finance for the benefit of vulnerable groups such as those in rural areas, informal settlements in urban areas, and displaced migrant/refugee communities. Through regular in-person engagement in workshops, conferences, meetings and discussions, project findings and learnings will be shared with relevant stakeholders, thus amplifying these results for greater uptake and possible impacts beyond the target communities.