For the Earth Day (April 22), UN Women highlights the crucial connections between sustainability and gender equality in policy, business, agriculture and share stories of how women’s empowerment can help protect the environment in countries around the globe.
The climate crisis is not gender neutral.
As its impacts worsen, women and girls are experiencing unique and disproportionate harm—with the fallout amplifying existing gender inequalities. Typically more dependent on natural resources and disproportionately responsible for securing food, water and fuel, women are highly vulnerable to environmental shocks. They face heightened exposure to gender-based violence in the wake of conflict and instability exacerbated by climate change, and they are less likely to survive disasters. At the same time, their access to life-saving resources and to key decision-making spaces remains severely limited.
Nevertheless, women remain at the forefront of the fight against climate change, leading prevention, mitigation and adaptation efforts around the world. Research indicates that women’s representation in national parliaments leads to the adoption of more stringent climate policies, resulting in lower emissions. Their leadership in the workplace is associated with greater transparency around climate impact. And their participation in local natural resource management is linked to better resource governance and conservation outcomes.
This Earth Day we’re highlighting the crucial connections between sustainability and gender equality in policy, business, agriculture and beyond. The stories below showcase how women’s empowerment can help protect the environment—and vice versa—in countries around the globe.
In Palestine, building environmental sustainability and breaking discriminatory practices
Rawan Rajab is a 22-year-old Palestinian woman from Kafr Al Libad village, located in Palestine’s West Bank. Combining her passion for the environment and her desire to make a positive impact in her community, Rawan founded “Blue Stone”, an environmentally conscious business that turns recycled glass into eco-friendly stones.
Rawan’s journey as a sustainable business owner began in 2020: “During the pandemic, and as the world began to shift to digital platforms, I started enrolling in online courses on business management and entrepreneurship. At the same time, and as a result of the quarantine, the impact of human behaviour on our planet was also apparent,” she explained. “That’s how I got the initial idea to do something that would help the environment.”
With a small amount of funding from an international organization, Rawan started her own glass recycling workshop just 50 metres from her home.
In Brazil, taking action to end climate change, achieve gender equality and ensure a sustainable future
Brazilian professor and researcher Geovânia Machado Aires, 35 years old, lives in the quilombo of Bairro Novo, located in the municipality of Penalva. She belongs to the Quilombola women, traditional collectors and processors of babassu coconuts, and has inherited a legacy in which women are active protagonists in the preservation of the environment and the achievement of a sustainable future.
Geovânia has dedicated herself to teaching the community that nothing is wasted from the babassu palm; On the contrary, everything is used and transformed through traditional knowledge, passed down from generation to generation. The leaves can be used to make roofs, baskets and decorative objects. Cosmetics are produced from the oil, which can also be used for cooking. The oil and the shell are both sources of fuel. The sale of these products is an essential source of income for Brazilian Quilombola communities.
In Uganda, increasing agricultural productivity and build resilience to climate change risks
Florence Driciru lives in the refugee host community of Kochi Subcounty in Uganda’s Yumbe District. A farmer and a mother of five, she says she is already feeling the impact of climate change on her livelihood: “The yields have been poor lately. The rains most times come late and when you plant you don’t get much.”
In Uganda, refugees and their host communities are feeling the brunt of worsening climate change. Deforestation and environmental degradation are hitting hard, especially in the refugee hosting districts in the country’s West Nile region. Both refugee and host populations are highly dependent on natural resources in their daily lives, relying on grass and wood for shelter and generating income through farming and the harvesting of forest products.
In 2021, UN Women, with funding from the Government of Japan, partnered with the Yumbe District Local Government to support farmers in the refugee and host communities to improve their farming practices. Florence and other farmers in her community received trainings in climate smart agriculture, as well as better seed varieties—particularly green gram and fruit trees. The group has now planted 25 acres of guavas and mangoes.
Source: UN Women