Women farmers are not accessing resources required to feed their families and communities as well as to adapt to climate change; according to a research paper by the Development Agency, Oxfam International. The report, “Financing women farmers: the need to increase and redirect agriculture and climate adaptation resources” was conducted in six countries. Among them Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania in Africa.

 Launched during the “climate change, energy transition and adaptation finance in Africa symposium” held at the sidelines of the Ordinary session of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), the report, which analyses policies and public investments, exposes a sham in the rhetoric and commitments by countries and donors to shore up the agricultural sector and to focus support on women farmers.   

“Women own only 14%  of Land in Africa, yet they are the ones who look for firewood, fetch water and provide food in the household,” said Jacqueline Amongin, Chair of Rural Economy, Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee of the PAP, adding  that “ transformation in agricultural systems cannot be possible without prioritization of the marginalized, especially women in agriculture.”

The findings come in a year of rising hunger, fueled by conflicts and super-charged weather events. A brutal drought in East Africa pushed millions to the brink of famine; several Category Five hurricanes slammed into the Caribbean and the United States; flooding in South Asia killed more than a thousand people. The report reveals that very little money is going to support small-scale farmers and help them become more resilient to climate change. According to the analysis, it’s almost impossible to know how much is really reaching women farmers, a group especially threatened by climate change. 

“Climate change is not some far-off threat; it’s here now and putting lives in danger,” said Mithika Mwenda, Head of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), which had organized the Symposium. “Governments are breaking their promises to give more resources to farmers. Women on the front lines of climate change can’t continue to struggle on while waiting for money to trickle down to them. Investing directly in women farmers not only helps them and their families, but bolsters the food security for all communities.”   

Oxfam is calling on donor governments to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and step up their funding aimed at helping communities adapt to climate change. “Developing countries must increase funding specifically for women farmers,” remarked Jessica Mwanzia, Oxfam Pan African Climate Justice Lead.” She emphasized that African countries must also honor the Maputo Declaration that commits 10 percent of all government spending to go on agriculture development, arguing that “these commitments offer huge benefits. Discriminatory attitudes and policies mean women farmers produce about 20 to 30 percent less than men – closing this gap would lift millions out of hunger and poverty.” 

The countries investigated by Oxfam are all struggling to get enough climate adaptation funding. In Pakistan, 26 percent of the $1.17 billion in climate finance they received in 2014 went to adaptation. Worse still, as of May, 2017; Nigeria has received only $15 million for adaptation—a sliver of what others have had. As of last year, multilateral adaptation funding for small-scale farmers totaled just $345 million, far short of the many billions that estimates show developing countries will need. 

Oxfam has unearthed that that governments do almost nothing to make sure women farmers benefit from these insufficient amounts of climate and agriculture funding. For example, in Nigeria, climate adaptation policies simply “encourage” women to participate in initiatives, but go no further. “These policies do little to support the specific needs of women farmers, like improving their access to land, credit, technical training, seeds,”  Awudu Cyprian Mbaya, Executive President of the Pan African Parliamentarians Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), who also attended the meeting, remarked. 

Mbaya stressed that poverty discriminates against women, and it is policies and attitudes of countries such as these that reveal why that happens. “If governments don’t adopt policies that clearly target women farmers, then they’ll be forgotten and left at the mercy of climate disasters they did nothing to cause.”

“We assume our governments are also worried about worsening global hunger and the inequality and poverty that drives it. But the kind of mealy-mouthed, underfunded policies that Oxfam has investigated, will only make people begin to seriously doubt it,” Said Eva Mageni Daudi, President of Rural Women Farmers Forum.