Together with Africa
August 5, 2011

Namibian women respond to climate change

The following piece is taken from the article “Women keen to ease greenhouse effect on their ability to provide,” published on the Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa website.

Marie Johansson of Creative Entrepreneur Solutions in Namibia described the urgent attention to food security of women in her community: “Rural women in Africa are burdened with providing for the household. They are the farmers, working the fields, cooking and trying to make a modest cash income on the side … You see a woman, sitting at a service station selling bread and it seems like a nice way to make an income. But poverty profiles show that she gets up at three in the morning to prepare the dough, then she makes breakfast, then she bakes the bread, then she works in the field for a couple of hours, before walking the 10 kilometers to the service station. There she sells bread all day long, maybe making an overall profit of five Namibian dollars (US$0.75). After that, of course, it’s back home to cook, clean and prepare for the next day, all the way up ‘til bedtime at midnight.”

For women already locked into a harsh existence, floods, droughts and higher temperatures are unwelcome guests that affect harvests and their ability to provide.

Read the entire article here.

Photo caption from IPS/Africa website: Victoria Mulunga is a participant in the CES programme in Namibia. Women take an interest in topics like conservation farming and drip irrigation. / Servaas van den Bosch/IPS