Women in the Global South are disproportionately impacted by the current climate crisis and are traditionally excluded from decision-making in many cultural contexts across the African continent.
However, there are many women who will not be silenced when it comes to conversations around their futures and what these women have to say is shaping the way we think about the climate crisis all over the world! Here are three of many African women steering conversations around climate change.
Thandile Chinyavanhu
Thandile Chinyavanhu is an environmental and social activist based in South Africa (SA) She works as a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa and is part of the database of experts.
She writes about public health, energy access, climate mitigation and the intersectionality of climate change, particularly its impacts on women of colour. Historical discrimination has left women without access to resources such as land, as well as decision-making; yet, women disproportionately experience the impacts of climate change.
Women make up a bulk of SA’s agricultural workforce through commercial farming and subsistence farming. Climate shocks such as droughts, floods and locust swarms directly impact these women’s capability to provide for their families. With every passing year, they recognise their crops yield less than before. Climate change is affecting their food security drastically. In fact, women are starving to shield their families from hunger.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Originating from the traditionally nomadic Mbororo community in Chad, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is the founder of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad which uses 3D mapping tools to show the benefits of using Indigenous peoples’ knowledge to solve climate problems. Hindou is a member of the 2017 National Geographic Emerging Explorers.
“Women and especially indigenous women are my heroes. In the Sahel and in many other places, women are the first to get up and the last to sleep. Without going to school, they are teachers, doctors, advisors, cooks, housewives, mothers, daughters,” Ibrahim told Greenpeace in 2020. “In short, they are the drivers of our communities. Women’s rights must be respected and their place should not be in the shadows, but in the light.”
“Traditional knowledge and climate science are both critically important for building resilience of rural communities to cope with climate change, and Indigenous peoples are ready to share their knowledge to help to mitigate and adapt,” she explained to the UN.
Fatou Samba
Fatou Samba, is the president of women fish processors from Khelcom processing site in Bargny, a town just east of Dakar in Senegal. She has been working to call on the government to stop the expansion of the fishmeal and fish oil industries
“I work on the coast just south of Dakar. Most days, men go out in the pirogues, their beautifully painted fishing boats. They sail far out to sea and when they bring back their catch, we process the fish. Most fish processors are women. In a cabin beside the wide beach, we gut the fish and clean them, before they are laid out in the sun, where they are salted and smoked. Huge areas are sometimes covered in thousands of neatly arranged fish, spread out over the sand or on stalls.”
“It’s tiring work but it’s honest. But miles out to sea, industrial trawlers are now competing with the pirogues for fish, and on the coast, many factories have appeared to grind the fish that should be ours into fishmeal and oil. The factories will eventually steal the last of our fish. – Fatou Samba
As president of the women processors of fishery products on my site in Bargny, Fatou and other associations like hers are fighting back. “With the fishermen’s trade unions, we have been protesting for years, in order to put pressure on our government. We have to make them act on their promises. Meanwhile, we are also demanding that big businesses stop sourcing fishmeal and oil from our countries. We will not stop our struggle until they stop stealing our fish,” Samba said in an interview with Greenpeace.