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Ghana - Woes of Women Amid Climate Change
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
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ACCRA,
Oct 19, 2011 (IPS) - As streams dry out, groundwater levels dwindle, and
forests and other vegetation yield to droughts or sever storms, women who live
their lives in the rural areas of
For these
women, climate change means more hard work just to survive.
However,
"decisions to tackle changes in the climate, which has become a threat to
livelihoods in developing countries, are void of women’s participation,"
says Kenneth Nana Amoateng, chief executive officer of Abibimman Foundation.
Yet these
women are also the same people who pick up the pieces, improvise solutions and
provide responses to the challenges imposed by climate change.
Amoateng
said that most of the women directly affected by climate change are either
inadequately represented or exempted from government’s policies and programmes
designed to solve the issue.
Akos
Matsiador, a 40-year-old fish seller who lives in Horvi village along
"The
current of the sea was so strong that it submerged the entire village. Baskets
of smoked fish that I had stored to sell to other women in other villages were
swept away by the sea," Matsiador says.
She was not
only displaced, but was also rendered jobless as her source of income – selling
smoked fish – was destroyed.
Matsiador
and other victims of the tidal wave, like Mercy Hlordzi who lost her husband
and her livelihood, now live in a shed by the village chief’s house.
"We are
just there, we don’t do anything because our work has been destroyed by the
sea," Hlordzi says.
They,
together with other women who have suffered a similar fate because of climate
change, are hoping that the Ghanaian government will intervene and help them
rebuild their lives.
Their voices
are currently not incorporated into the countries climate change discourse and
processes as they have little or no knowledge of the issue and its effects on
their livelihoods.
In their
quest to give a platform to these women, Abibimman Foundation, together with Greenpeace
and various other non-governmental organisations, organised the Women and
Climate Justice Hearings on Monday in
Memuna
Sandow, an assemblywoman from the Wulugu electoral area in West Mamprusi
district in northern
"The
drought has lead to the loss of food, crops and animals, which are basic for
human survival," she says.
"They
maintain the environment more than men, but when it comes to decisions
regarding climate change, women are not represented," Sandow adds.
She says,
however, that women’s lack of knowledge on the issue of climate change has
rendered them paralysed in the fight against it.
She says
that it is necessary for the government to involve women in the design and
implementation of climate change policies and programmes.
"Poor
participation of women in the decisions has a negative effect on the efforts to
combat climate change," Sandow says.
Minister for
Women and Children’s Affairs Juliana Azumah Mensah shares the same opinion.
"It is
an undisputed fact that women constitute a large number of the poor in
communities that are highly dependent on local natural resources for their
livelihoods."
She adds
that
Mensah says
government is considering the active participation of women in the development
of funding criteria and allocation of resources for climate change initiatives.
"My
expectation is that output from these climate change hearings will be
communicated to appropriate agencies to inform plans at the national as well as
local districts assembly," Mensah says.
Amoateng
reiterates an old Chinese proverb "we should see the earth not as an inheritance
from our fathers but a borrowed asset from our children, which we will be
required to give back to them."