On September 20, 2024, the Compact on Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action (WPS-HA Compact) and the Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice (FACJ) organized the event “Advancing Feminist Climate Justice and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda to Build Resilient Societies.” The event was held on the sidelines of the Summit of the Future and explored how climate change impacts and exacerbates risks to peace and security.
Attendees included commitment makers and signatories of the Action Coalition on FACJ and the WPS-HA Compact, including the International Development Law Organization, Engajamundo youth organization, Women for a Change NGO from Cameroon, the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, as well as many others. The event explored how to effectively promote women’s leadership, participation, and protection in order to foster gender-responsive relief and recovery, as well as ways to leverage the WPS agenda to address the security risks and challenges posed by climate change.
The discussion aimed to identify synergies across feminist action and climate justice as well as the Women, Peace and Security agenda and humanitarian action across programmes, policymaking, and financing. The conversation also looked at identifying key messages for the Summit of the Future and recommendations to strengthen coordination and collaboration between commitment makers and signatories of the Action Coalition and Compact.
Ms. Harriette Williams Bright, the WPS-HA Compact lead and moderator of the session stressed that “while there is evidence recognizing that conflict and environmental and humanitarian crisis disproportionately affect women and that there is a vital need to meaningfully include women’s voices in prevention and response efforts, we know that women’s leadership in these efforts continue to be sidelined.”
Speakers included Mr. Sunil Pal, advocacy specialist at the International Development Law Organization, who shared that “our work between climate justice and the WPS agenda is promoting an explicitly feminist approach to climate change, based on the rule of law to ensure inclusive, equitable, and effective responses to the climate crisis that deliver on human rights for girls and for women, while mitigating associated risks with peace and security.”
Ms. Danielle Amaral, the executive director of youth-led organization Engajamundo highlighted how the climate crisis is impacting particularly vulnerable women in Brazil, including indigenous- and LGBTQI communities, who face added challenges such as homelessness and attacks.
“Climate change is one of the very critical risk multipliers and threat multipliers for women in conflict affected communities – it aggravates existing conflicts and inequalities,” said Ms. Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, the CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and the WPS-HA Compact Board Co-Chair.
Ms. Zoneziwoh Mbondgulo-Wondieh, the executive director of Women for a Change in Cameroon highlighted how climate change is impacting conflict in the Central African sub-region, including for communities who have been displaced from conflict and who have been displaced multiple times due to climate related events such as flooding. “Meaningful participation of women in conversations related to peace processes and climate related approaches is key to addressing the intersection between gender, climate change, and conflict,” she said.
“It’s very critical that we unpack conflict drivers in order to find the pathways for effective and lasting solutions and to understand the gender dimensions of climate related security risk,” said Tatyana Jiteneva, policy specialist, peacebuilding and sustaining peace at UN Women.
Key issues discussed included the commonalities of long-term war and climate-induced disasters causing multiple layers of challenges facing vulnerable communities, including displacement and food insecurity. The issue of shrinking livelihoods was also highlighted as a consequence of climate change, especially in agriculture with a large proportion of women working informally, which in turn fuels conflict, gender-based violence, and child marriage.
Participants also highlighted that sustainable peace for women must understand the gendered dimensions of climate security risk and take into account ways of scaling up successful approaches. The discussion also centered around the need to fight back against the erosion of human rights and the shrinking of civic space by supporting the enforcement of women’s rights, including indigenous- and LGBTQI communities by providing legal aid and services, including in countries like Brazil and Colombia.
The event discussions identified the following key recommendations for action:
1) Concretize synergies across feminist action for climate justice, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and humanitarian action with a focus on effective policymaking, programming, and financing to build climate-resilient societies and prevent conflict in the long run by empowering local women’s organizations.
2) Involve grassroots women leaders (including youth) for peace and their global networks for coordinated planning, taking into account local realities and fostering meaningful participation in WPS National Action Plans and climate resilience planning.
3) Ensure thatlaws, policies, and dispute resolution mechanisms are people-centered and that they help women to respond to and withstand shocks(including community-driven land dispute resolution, disaster risk reduction, natural resources management, and peacebuilding) while supporting capacity development programmes, the localization agenda, and good governance.
4) Enhance joint action to help build a network of Feminist Action for Climate Justice Action Coalition and Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action Compact stakeholders, including around UNFCCC COP29 and CSW 69 / Beijing +30.
Special thanks to Ms. Szilvia Lehel, Thematic Lead of the Action Coalition for Feminist Action for Climate Justice, and Ms. Rosalind Helfand of UN Women for their invaluable contributions to the organization of the event.