Innovators of three climate solution projects from Cameroon, Uganda and Senegal have been named as winners of the Gender Just Climate Solutions Scale (GJCS) Fund.

The three projects – Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch (CAMGEW), SafePlan Uganda, and E-Faitou – and three others from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Mexico were selected for the pilot round of the fund.

The GJCS Fund is a new re-grant collective founded by women’s rights organisations and members of the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC).

Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), alongside African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), and the Women’s Environmental Programme (WEP) are the initial launch partners of the fund.

‘One of the biggest challenges we hear from partners and activists is that climate funding does not reach local communities’, Director of WEDO said.

‘This new women’s rights collective scale fund will be another tool to fill this gap, to support replication and ambition of gender-just climate solutions globally’.

CAMGEW says it plans to create a coalition of gender and climate actors in the Kilum-Ijim forest area to carry out a variety of actions, including conducting advocacy using GJCS fund resources.

The Kilum-ijim forest in the northwest region of Cameroon is recognised globally as a rare and valuable centre of endemic biodiversity with animals, birds and plants.

CAMGEW has planted 100,446 trees to regenerate the forest and trained over 2,000 women and over 770 farmers to benefit from non-timber forest products, according to a GJCS statement.

‘This project will advocate for women’s socio economic and environmental rights locally and nationally. It will promote women’s participation and consideration of women’s voices in the development of environmental management plans’, the statement quoted Sevidzem Ernestine Leikeki of CAMGEW as saying.

The impact of CAMGEW project on the Kilum-ijim forest means biodiversity in the forest is protected.

In Uganda, BinduBudongo Women Bee Enterprise, an initiative of Safeplan Uganda, supports women and the youth to preserve the environment through beekeeping and honey production.

The fund is expected to enhance activities related to women’s knowledge of their rights and forest protection, promote the exchange of information, and develop training and education campaigns.

In Senegal, E-Faitou provides a ‘Solar Pack Last Mile’ to promote the use of renewable energies, especially for rural women and young people.

According to the Green People’s Energy (GBE), 53 percent of people in Senegal live in rural areas and more than 56 percent of the country’s rural population do not have access to electricity.

The pack of small productive solar equipment supports women and girls economically by enabling them to create income-generating activities and helping to meet the productive energy needs of off-grid areas.

‘We plan to get started quickly with technical training and management of the productive solar tool’, the statement quoted Nadège Payet Tisset of E-Faitou as saying.

‘Thanks to the endowment of the fund, we will equip three women’s groups in Senegal in order to create solar micro-enterprises with one of the elements of our “last mile” solar kit’.

The fund, it is understood, will also be used to purchase and transport the equipment included in the kit to women’s groups, provide training, and monitor revenue generation from the kits.

Source: WEDO

Photo source: CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems