Gender and Climate Change Financing

1. Gender and Climate Change Financing Coming out of the Margins Regional differentiation - Africa Mariama Williams mariamaw@hotmail.com

3. Africa produces one ton of CO2 per person per. South Africa, the most industrialised country of the continent, generates 8,44t, meanwhile Mali which is at the lowest level of industrialisation, produces less than one-tenth of a ton per person per year. The whole of Africa produces about 920,000t each year, less than 4% of the global production.

4. UNECA (2009): a “number of factors explain Africa’s low share of CDM transactions... (including)… barriers related to CDM procedures and modalities; coverage of CDM; financial, institutional and capacity barriers in host countries; and, …low greenhouse gas emissions in Africa, with possibly the exception of South Africa and Nigeria…

5. Gender and cost effective mitigation Increase funding for women farmers activities in the areas of carbon sequestration. Women’s activities in agriculture and forestry such as .crop mixing can promote cost effective mitigation “Carbon sequestration in soils and plants is the only strategy that can remove carbon from the atmosphere and, over time, reduce atmosheric concentration of CO2. Carbon offset payments should be allowed for carbon sequestered in soils where low-cost monitoring is available. Funds for the development of these monitoring systems should be part of any outcome. Paying resource-poor farmers and smallholders in developing countries for soil carbon sequestration would contribute to GHG mitigation, provide much needed resources to support development and adaption of improved crop technologies, and reduce rural poverty.” Rattan Lal (IFPRI, 2009)

6. Gender and cost effective mitigation UNFCCC 2008 cites the example of the Kenyan Government’s policy that promotes efficient cooking stoves as one example of how governments can, through such as grants or tax credits for research spending, influences different stage of the mitigation technology development cycle. Kenya sought to “support R&D activities that increase the efficiency of stoves and lower their price, which will in turn make the stoves more accessible to urban and rural poor populations

7. Gender and cost effective Mitigation There is evidence from a 2005 study from Africa that shows that ‘improved fallow system can yield sequestration between 0.1 -5.3 metric tons (mt) of carbon per hectare per year” as compared to “conservation farming without trees, 0 to 0.36 mt (ibid). There is also evidence that small scale irrigation facilities (such as undertaken by the women of Ghana, Senegal and the Philippines) “not only conserve water in the face of weather variability but also increase crop productivity and soil carbon (Nelson, IFPRI 2009).

8. Technology Finance and Gender In the area of technology women play important role in cost effective Soft technology (i.e., Crop rotation patterns) and Hard Technology (i.e. Drought resistant crop varieties, Seawalls and irrigation techniques).

9. Gender Technology & Finance “African women are particularly known to possess indigenous knowledge which helps to maintain household food security, particularly in times of drought and famine. They often rely on indigenous plants that are more tolerant to droughts and pests, providing a reserve for extended periods of economic hardship. In southern Sudan, for example, women are directly responsible for the selection of all sorghum seeds saved for planting each year. They preserve a spread of varieties of seeds that will ensure resistance to the range of conditions that may arise in any given growing season.” Source: IPCC WGII Cross Sectoral Studies Chapter.

10. In Kenya, 48 percent of business owners are women, yet they have only 7 percent of formal credit and own just 1 percent of land. In Nigeria, women own 25–30 percent of registered businesses and access 10–15 percent of bank credit. In Uganda, women account for 39 percent of businesses with registered premises and 9 percent of commercial bank credit. International Financial Corporation (IFC).

11. Gendered based inefficiency in financing, investment and credit flows also impact macro level variable contributing to losses in real output, productivity growth and ultimately overall economic performances. In Burkina Faso, a transfer of resources (like fertilizer and labour) from men’s to women’s plots of land within the same household could increase agricultural output by 10-20 per cent (World Bank 1999: 10). (World Bank) Research in Tanzania indicates that reducing time burdens of women in the care economy could increase household cash incomes for smallholder coffee and banana growers by 10 per cent, labour productivity by 15 per cent, and capital productivity by 44 per cent (World Bank 1999: 20).

12. Africa and CDM • Africa’s share of CDM transaction: low 5% (2007) Why? Multiple reasons. But mainly limitations of the current types of project eligible under current CDM regime. Land use sectors. II. Scale of CDM. III. Project financing & Institutional capacity

13. Africa and Climate Financing Africa account for only 4% of CDM projects (UNFCCC 2009). African countries with registered CDM projects include: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (1 each), and South Africa (15), IGES 2009). UNECA as of April 2009 23 African countries submitted a total of 102 CDM projects in the CDM pipeline (UNECA 2009).

14. Africa and CDM –Land use Africa’s comparative advantage in terms of CDM is in Land use, its greatest potential for carbon finance. Why? Many African countries are dependent on agriculture. Under current CDM, limited definition of such projects area allowed. Focus is on afforestation/reforesteation activities plus agricultural waste projects. Africa’s advantage: sustainable land use practices

15. Africa and CDM: Financial constraints • Lack of financing & facility to provide: Seed capital support scoping studies to ID project opp. • Many in private sector lack access seed /start up financing. (Financial barriers) • Financial mechanism that can help to solve this include: increasing use of ODA • Insurance mechanism, export guarantees

16. Africa and CDM: Scale of project • Small scale CDM by simplifying CDM procedure to enable lower project development costs (below a certain threshold of emissions reduction) should enable more local development of projects in Africa. But has not done so? (see $$$ etc.) • Need for additional simplification methodologies for sectors with high potential in Africa • In this regard, Programmatic CDM should also have helped but also failed to: ( Technical barriers/allocation of risk/lack of simplification of monitoring process) • (Sectoral CDM (post 2012) also likely to be beneficial.

17. Africa and CDM: Institutional Capacity • Need for policy intervention from government and MDFIs to increase local capacity to establish the right institutional framework to stimulate CDM projects • Nairobi Framework (for capacity building in Africa) • Best practice of African government to promote national CDM