Strengthening the Capacity of South-South Negotiators
Context
According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human-induced climate change continues to cause dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affect the lives of billions of people around the world, with the hardest hit on people least able to cope with the impacts.
Women are one of the groups of people least able to cope with the widespread climate change impacts due to their vulnerability in different ways. Women represent the majority of the world’s poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources.
It is against this backdrop that Women Environmental Programme (WEP), in collaboration with the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC) with support from Climate Action Africa (CAA) organized a training on Climate Change Negotiations for African Women in Lome, Togo, West Africa. The training equipped the participants with climate change negotiation skills to effectively engage at climate change meetings and get their demands into conference decisions that affect them.
PART 1 – Strengthening the Capacity of South-South Negotiators – Togo
Participant countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda
Venue: Togo
Goal of the exchange
The overall goal of the SSE is to enhance the negotiation skills of AWGGCC delegates and leaders to various Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) conferences, to engage effectively in international policy discourse, as well as contribute to the successful implementation of National development agenda and policies.
The specific objectives are;
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- To provide training for junior and new women negotiators, UNFCCC gender focal points on the UNFCCC negotiating processes.
- To equip participants with knowledge and understanding of UNFCCC Processes.
- To strengthen support and synergy with the African Group of Negotiators.
Summary of Exchange:
From 24-26 April 2023, Women Environmental Programme (WEP), in collaboration with the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC) with support from Climate Action Africa (CAA) organized a training on Climate Change Negotiations for African Women. The training was held at STE Concept Universel Hotel M Rode, Lomé, Togo. Participants at the training were drawn from government agencies and civil society organizations from 16 countries in Africa, UK and Canada. The workshop equipped 38 participants (30 females and 8 males) with climate change negotiation skills to effectively engage at climate change meetings and get their demands into conference decisions that affect them.
Outcomes:
The climate change negotiation workshop for African women produced useful outcomes both for individual participants, the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change and Women Environmental Programme as an organization.
Participants gained deeper knowledge on climate change negotiations as they had been exposed to that depth of knowledge for the first time. This was possible because experienced gender and climate change negotiators participated as resource persons, shared their experiences, and imparted knowledge from their expert perspectives. Participants confirm this knowledge gained in the section below on reflections.
The workshop also produced positive outcomes for the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change and other African women as the workshop served as a platform for the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change to work out a way forward for the group and planned to engage at the upcoming climate change events.
PART 2 – Strengthening the Capacity of South-South Negotiators
Participant countries: Nigeria, Kenya
Summary of Exchange:
The SSE provided the opportunity for two participants (Nigeria and Kenya) from the AWGGCC SSE held in Togo in April 2023 with the opportunity to continue applying their knowledge and skills gained through being physically present at the negotiations, side events, and other activities.
Two members of the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC) from Kenya and Nigeria were supported by Climate Action Africa to participate at the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) from 30 November – 12 December 2023 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These members participated in the two-week conference, speaking at side events, co-organizing events with other feminist groups, engaging with negotiators and exhibiting the works of their organizations.
Outcomes:
Participating at this conference provided an opportunity to the participants to contribute the knowledge and skills they had learnt during the climate change negotiations workshop prior to COP28. Through the workshop that was co-organized by WEP, WEDO and other partners, the Gender and Environmental Data Alliance (GEDA) was strengthened as more organizations joined the Alliance. GEDA was formed some years back with WEP as one of the founding members to promote the generation of gender and environmental data to inform environmental policy decisions.
