COP27 Water Day and Gender Day November 14, 2022

As the second week of COP27 kicked off, Monday’s discussions focused on two major themes, gender and water.

Key Announcements, Discussions and Pledges on Gender Day

Introducing the African Women's Climate Adaptive Priorities (AWCAP) initiative

During the opening session for Gender Day, President of the National Council for Women in Egypt, Dr. Maya Morsi, announced and launched the AWCAP initiative. While recognising that women are powerful agents of change and that their leadership is critical, this initiative stems from a key insight that in the wake of disasters, women and children represent around 80% of those needing assistance, while women in deprived rural areas are 14 times more likely to die during a natural disaster.

Countries such as the US have also taken the opportunity to announce national initiatives on Gender Day, such as the USAID’s Commitment to Gender-Responsive Climate Action.

Women on the frontline

The COP27 ‘Voices of Women Leaders in Climate Debates, Policies, Implementation and Beyond’ event focused on how women are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis but how, if given the opportunity, they can lead the world out of it. Throughout the day other events added colour to these themes, providing important perspectives from women on the frontline in some of the regions most impacted by climate change.

UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, told an event focused on women in Africa that: “Women and girls are essential, effective and powerful leaders to address the climate crisis, but they remain largely undervalued and underestimated with limited access to training extension services and the technology necessary for effective adaptation to the impacts of climate change,”

Offering a different perspective, Indigenous women from the Amazon held a press conference denouncing the violence committed against both their land and their bodies, illustrating how land and gender are interlinked. “In both cases we are talking about consent and violations of our right to decide,” explained Helena Gualinga, an Indigenous youth climate leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador. “We are the main custodians of the untouched forests. If women are protected, we will also protect the territories and ecosystems essential to climate mitigation.”

Sônia Bone Guajajara, an Indigenous leader from Brazil recently elected to the National Congress, added to the voices criticising the COP summit for failing to take the views of Indigenous women into account despite the significant role they play in protecting water and land from exploitation by extractive industries like monocropping, mines and oil. “We are the ones protecting biodiversity, so we need Indigenous women in decision making spaces yet here at COP our participation is still undermined,” she explained.

Gender-responsive climate financing

The ‘Women and Climate Change Finance’ conference highlighted the role of women in society and business and the fact that inequalities could lead to different outcomes when it comes to climate finance.

These concepts were echoed at a side event coordinated by CDB and UN Women Multi-Country Office Caribbean, during which Caribbean representatives highlighted the need for countries across the world to transform how they finance climate action. Isaac Solomon, the vice-president of operations at the Caribbean Development Bank, stressed that the proportion of gender-inclusive climate finance is far below the level at which it should be, with the Climate Policy Institute estimating that fewer than 5 percent of private, public, and blended climate finance was gender-responsive in 2020.

Trinidad and Tobago's minister of planning and development, Pennelope Beckles, expanded on why the gender perspective is vital, particularly in regions like the Caribbean which is suffering disproportionately from the impact of climate change: “If you think about the aftermath of any hurricane in the Caribbean, women are a lot more impacted than men. They are the ones [expected] to do the cleaning and cooking when there might be no clean water, they have to protect families when shelter might be an issue and they themselves are in a vulnerable position and then they may also face challenges with matters we might not necessarily want to discuss, like hygiene and menstrual health.”

Former executive director of the International Trade Centre, Patricia Francis, also underscored the compelling strategic benefits of gender lens investing, echoing other panellists’ suggestions that diversity leads to better decisions. “We have to look at all aspects of a project or an operation to ensure gender inclusion. This is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do,” she explained.

Women, water and gender-based violence

Focusing on the nexus between the day’s two themes, the ‘MPGCA Accountability and Implementation Dialogue’ event focused on how, as water is becoming an increasingly rare and expensive commodity, women and children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis.

Examples have shone a light on women’s experiences in different regions: women farmers in the western part of Africa have said how a combination of severe stress and a lack of water to carry out essential household chores has exposed them to domestic violence, while Lucy Ntongal, Kenyan climate and gender expert from the NGO Actionaid, told journalists at a press conference:

“the priority for mothers is water and because their husbands have left home looking for new pastures. They will take their daughters out of school to walk for miles to get water. Eventually, they must undergo female genital mutilation for them to be married off. This is because the family cannot feed extra mouths”.

Diane Gilhooley, comments:

“A day focused on gender is an important addition to COP27 this year. Although climate change will affect everyone in the world, inequalities exist in the impacts experienced. The evidence of such impacts, particularly on women in certain parts of the world, is compelling. The national gender-focused initiatives announced at the summit, including the AWCAP and the USAID’s Commitment to Gender-Responsive Climate Action, are therefore welcome developments.

As well as the inequalities in relation to impacts around the world, inequalities also continue to exist in the voices being heard on the important issue of climate change. The summit events have highlighted that women are powerful agents of change, important custodians of some of the most vulnerable parts of the planet, and that the unique insights, experiences and ideas that women can offer are critical to addressing climate change.

It is clear that there is still much work to be done around the world to address gender inequalities and the gender perspective, including on the disparate impact of climate change. To maximize the impact of policy decisions on the important topics of COP27, it is crucial to ensure that women’s voices are heard and their contributions are included in environmental agendas”.

Key Announcements, Discussions and Pledges on Water Day

The first ever Water-themed day at a COP, the Egyptian Government have placed the topic on the forefront of the agenda, ahead of the UN Water Conference in March 2023. Water Day focuses on harnessing water security action onto the global climate agenda through the creation of new initiatives and funds.

Action on Water Adaptation and Resilience Initiative (AWARe)

Water Day has seen the launch of the AWARe initiative (action on water adaptation and resilience initiative) in collaboration with the World Meteorological organisation. This is one of the biggest presidency initiatives for today and aims to put water front and centre of adaptation and resilience by offering transitional solutions for the planet and people, starting with the world’s most vulnerable communities and ecosystems in Africa.

The initiative is arranged across three main priorities:

1. Decrease water loss and improve water supply worldwide
2. Propose and support implementing mutually agreed policy and methods for cooperative water related adaptation action and its co-benefits
3. Promote cooperation and interlinkages between water and climate action to achieve Agenda 2030 and in particular Sustainable Water Development Goal (SDG) 6, clean water and sanitation.

Egypt has confirmed that it will host a new Pan-African Centre for Water Climate Adaptation to oversee AWARE workstreams.

The Water Action Event in the morning explored the power of water and the unexplored potential for climate resilience. There was a focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation through the lens of water, with panel members coining the phrase “bringing the basin into the boardroom”.

Water Activist and CEO of Thirst Foundation and Run Blue, Mina Guli, who has completed 120 marathons since March 23rd (Water Day) and aims to complete another 80 before the 2023 UN Water Summit in a bid to catalyse action and draw attention to the conference as a key milestone, gave closing remarks:

“Climate Change is Water Change, and climate risks are water risks; why, despite all the floods, droughts and heats, do we still fail to act?”

The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund (ACWA Fund)

The World Resource Institute in collaboration with public and private sector partners, development banks, impact investors, state and non-State actors and experts launched the African Cities Water Adaptation Fund (ACWA Fund), an Africa-focused blended finance instrument that aims to support the development and implementation of more than 200 projects in 100 African cities by 2032.

The AWCA fund supports city leaders to fund and scale high-impact water resilience solutions across Africa by leveraging private financing while better coordinating public sector funds alongside climate and development aid.

Beyond water stewardship, there will also be a focus on improving water access: the Race to Resilience initiative has stated that there is a $66bn backlog in water and sanitation infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa and that, even if that backlog were cleared immediately, an additional $9-14bn would be needed each year this decade to ensure reliable supply.

Fair Water Footprint issues call for new supporters

COP26 in Glasgow launched the ‘Glasgow Declaration for Fair Water Footprint’ and this Declaration recognises the links between water, climate adaptation, biodiversity and human rights and requires signatories to take “significant and measurable action” this decade. Governments already involved in the declaration to transform interactions with water systems are the UK, Peru, Malawi, Madagascar, Finland and Panama.

Today, these nations have made a call to action (in particular, Finland’s Environment Secretary, Terri Lehtonen) to governments in both developed and developing countries, progressive businesses, financiers and NGOs to join this leadership initiative which puts climate resilient and equitable water management at the heart of the global economy by 2030.