What to know on 'African Women Climate Adaptive Priorities' initiative launched by Egypt

CAIRO – 14 November 2022: President of the National Council for Women (NCW) Maya Morsi presented – in her speech at the opening of COP 27's thematic day on women – the objectives of the African Women Climate Adaptive Priorities (AWCAP) initiative launched by Egypt.

The AWCAP objectives are:

Creation of a nexus among the ministers of environment and heads of bodies concerned with women affairs and empowerment

Promotion of knowledge production, enhancing the provision of climate information technologies, data collection, research, exchange of experiences

Strengthening commitments pertinent to investing in women, especially in education in certain fields such as STEMCapitalizing on existing public-private-partnerships

Promotion of gender sensitive social protection policies and measures to ensure just transition pathways

There are three main goals that AWCAP would manage to achieve. One is ensuring that women get a share in the $500 billion to be spent in the coming 10 years on re-skilling employees within green transition efforts.

Another is boosting the number of women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in Africa, as their percentage currently stands at 36 percent. As for the third goal, it is about channeling funding to women-led green start-ups.  

Morsy also stated the reasons Egypt launched the initiative, and they are:

African women are almost 50% of the continents population.  

Rural women in Africa are at a significant risk of being adversely affected by climate change due to household responsibilities and increased agricultural work and displacement resulting from climate impacts. Not to mention, in the wake of disasters

Women and children in Africa are 80% of those in need of assistance while, poor women are 14 times more likely to die during a natural disaster.

Almost 40% agricultural workforce in 46 of 53 African countries are women.

Women represent just 15% of landholders, and 70% of the continent's food is produced by women.

The gender gap in information, communication and technology (ICT) in Africa is 23%.

African Women are heavily reliant on environment- related livelihoods, working in disproportionately climate-exposed sectors such as agriculture and livestock management, forestry, water management, and health.

Existing inequalities facing women and girls limit sustainable and equitable transition to resilient water- energy-food systems, especially in the most climate change prone areas.