Let’s raise up solutions that strive to achieve gender and climate justice! We Women are Water

Around the world, women-led initiatives are demonstrating how to protect and restore one of our most vital resources: water. 

These transformative initiatives need massive support and resources, while false climate solutions, privatization of water resources, pollution from extractive industries and human rights violations must stop immediately. 

Narrated by women from the communities affected themselves, the We Women are Water Campaign presents a series of videos to raise awareness on the action of  women and their communities  around the globe to protect their ecosystems against false climate solutions that destroy their territories while leading gender just climate and water solutions.

The Magar Indigenous community in Nepal are facing threats to their land and resources due to a hydropower project financed by  the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. For centuries the community has maintained a symbiotic relationship with nature, passing down traditional ecological knowledge for generations such as planting broom grass to prevent soil erosion and landslides. 

READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE

The Qom Indigenous community of Santa Rosa in Paraguay are facing environmental destruction from an NGO planting eucalyptus on their land, destroying the ecosystem and without their consent. The community is taking action by filing complaints, staging demonstrations and raising awareness of their situation, despite facing physical violence and threats. The gender-just climate solution of securing Indigenous territorial sovereignty is one of the most cost effective, sustainable and equitable strategies to protect and restore water and vital ecosystem functions.

READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE

The Yaataah community in Nigeria’s Niger Delta have been impacted by fossil fuel extraction by companies like Shell and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation. The community’s women, with the help of an organization, trained 250 women and girls in mangrove restoration and biodiversity management. They aim to restore 500,000 mangroves a year and 5 million mangroves within the next decade.  –

READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE

The women from the Mayan Chor’ti community in Guatemala are facing displacement and loss of access to water due to the expansion of jatropha monocultures for biodiesel production. They are using their ancestral knowledge to conserve and protect water resources, taking legal actions to secure land rights and holding companies accountable for environmental damage. They have built water reservoirs, diversified crops, and planted native species to adapt to the droughts caused by climate change. –

READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE

Did you know that only 0.01% of funding worldwide supports projects that address both climate and women’s rights?  More and better resourcing of gender just climate and water solutions needs to start today. 

What is a gender just climate and water solution

Gender just climate and water solutions* encompass a range of activities that aim to address the water crisis and climate change mitigation and adaptation, while also supporting the systemic redistribution of power, recognizing water as a human right and providing opportunities and access for women, girls and trans, intersex and non binary people. In particular, ensuring that activities do not reinforce harmful gendered norms.  Gender just climate and water solutions are being implemented by communities across the globe, and deserve to be fully recognized, funded, replicated and scaled!

*Since 2015, the Women and Gender Constituency’s (WGC) Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards Program has identified many examples of gender just climate solutions –see the directory here. GAGGA, via national and regional environmental justice and women’s rights funds and NGOs, supports various gender just climate and water solutions across the world.

The Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action calls for a commitment from governments, international development banks and funds to uphold the human right to water and invest in women’s leadership in gender just climate and water solutions now ! 

Help spread the word. Share these videos on social media.
Contact Noemi Grutter at n.grutter@fondocentroamericano.org for ways to get involved.

Twitter: @GAGGA_Alliance #WeWomenAreWater

You can also find this campaign statement in Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Check out the social media toolkit, available in Spanish, French and Portuguese. 

Click here to access the press kit

You can follow the campaign on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using #WeWomenAreWater #NosMulheresSomosAgua #NousFemmesSommeslEau and #LasMujeresSomosAgua.