Stella Gama calls for greater women's voice on climate change
Stella Gama, the Government of Malawi’s Director of Forestry, has made a powerful intervention calling for greater involvement of women in the climate change negotiations as a whole, and greater empowerment of women to lead climate actions in-country.
Ms Gama is the Technology Transfer Lead and also the Gender Lead for the Least Developed Country (LDC) Group of negotiators in the United Nations climate talks.
Speaking at the international Gobeshona conference this week, Ms Gama welcomed Anne-Marie Trevelyan into her new role as the UK International Champion on Adaptation and Resilience for COP26, the UN climate conference coming up in November in Glasgow, UK.
Ms Gama urged Ms Trevelyan to take actions to ensure that “women and other marginalised groups are empowered to respond to the impacts of climate change in Least Developed Countries.”
Ms Trevelyan responded that the UK is committed to holding an inclusive COP26 in all senses. She has asked the President-designate of COP26, to “press the implementation of the United Nations’ Gender Action Plan (GAP) and we call on all countries and all those other actors in these huge challenges to develop gender responsible climate policies, programmes and actions, right through to the National Adaptation Plans and the Nationally Determined Contributions.”
“I’ll also be calling for greater investment in the evidence base to empower women and girls, disaggregated data by gender, age, and disability. There is lots to do in this space,” she assured Ms Gama, “and I don’t for a moment suggest that this is a step we have cracked it. You can have the best men in the world but you are still only using 50% of the human capital we have.”
Recommended reading
You can read Stella Gama’s views on women’s participation in climate-related decision-making in her recent interview in The Nation: Malawi’s only female on climate change negotiations.
Image: Madrid, Spain, COP25 climate conference: global climate action event.