WUNRN
Namibia - Women, Farming, & Environmentalism
By Servaas van den Bosch
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"Rural
women in
"You
see a woman, sitting at a service station selling bread and it seems like a
nice way to make an income. But poverty profiles show that she gets up at three
in the morning to prepare the dough, then she makes breakfast, then she bakes
the bread, then she works in the field for a couple of hours, before walking
the 10 kilometres to the service station.
"There
she sells bread all day long, maybe making an overall profit of five Namibian
dollars (0.75 U.S. dollars). After that, of course, it’s back home to cook,
clean and prepare for the next day, all the way up ‘til bedtime at
midnight."
For women
already locked into a harsh existence, floods, droughts and higher temperatures
are unwelcome guests that affect harvests and their ability to provide.
Says
Johansson: "Men do mostly not have this vicious cycle of working and
sleeping, so they tend to pay less attention when land issues are discussed in
climate change adaptation workshops. But the women will say that the first
thing they want to do is to secure the household staple food production, no
matter what.
"A
woman tends to take an interest in topics like conservation farming and drip
irrigation because for her it is vital to get as much food from her land as
possible. ‘How do I plan my farm with these floods?’ ‘Should I maybe diversify
into rice production?’ These are the questions they face."
With a
handful of other women Johansson started Creative Entrepreneur Solutions in
2007. She helped poor women in the townships to strengthen their small informal
enterprises, or start new ones.
In 2009 the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) approached CES to roll out a
community- based adaptation programme in 20 communities in five Namibian
provinces. The programme has been extremely successful.
"Our
approach works because it is a bottom-up approach. If the donors walk out
tomorrow, it will still work. Most donor-funded or government-initiated
programmes fail because they don’t ask the people what they want and create no
sense of ownership."
Instead, CES
started self-help groups modelled on initiatives in
"Our
approach is twofold," explains Johansson. "Yes, we want to improve
food security, but if there is an opportunity to create an enterprise at the
same time, why not? We are interested in helping aspiring entrepreneurs to put
their ideas into practice."
So, the
women engage in conservation tilling and improved irrigation methods for their
dry-land crops and, in the process, start to farm differently.
"Women
now grow different plants that are better suited to different climatic
conditions or have more market applications, or they switch to aquaculture.
Climate change also brings possibilities. The recent floods have really opened
people’s eyes to fish farming and they are now establishing ponds and dams.
They also have started using energy-efficient stoves and they practise water
harvesting."
Can
programmes like this have a spill-over effect into the Southern African region?
"I would think so," argues Martha Mwandingi, the Namibian head of
energy and environment for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mwandingi
oversees several large programmes relating to climate change adaptation,
biodiversity and ecosystem management, including the project run by CES.
"Countries
can adapt projects and tailor them to their own circumstances. Or ideas can be
used straightaway, such as the climate change information toolkits that we
developed for communities."
"Climate
change impacts most heavily on women because of the multiple roles they play in
a household, from farmer to provider to being the managers of the country’s
national resources," says Mwandingi.
"Climate
change compounds the burden of women because of the perpetuation of
discriminatory gender-specific roles. All over the world global warming affects
people, but especially the most vulnerable. Women belong to that group."
Mwandingi
thinks more research is needed on the involvement of women in the climate
change decision-making process. "There might be a gap there. I would love
to see some studies on this. How many women sit on
"On the
other hand, looking at
"But it
deserves a closer look. How are women for instance involved in the various
climate change science centres across the Southern African region? And how does
that involvement affect the decisions about the type of data to gather and what
models to draw up?"
Mwandingi
proposes that the Global Gender and Climate Alliance established at the UN
Climate Change Conference in