In its agriculture and gender empowerment objectives, the NEPAD Agency works to support policies and programmes that ensure that African women, most of whom bear the brunt of under-development, are not further affected by the consequences of climate change. 

NEPAD Gender Climate Change Agriculture Support Programme (GCCASP) has been gaining momentum. The Programme has embarked on a series of workshops in a number of African countries to validate the priority areas and plans on how the Programme will roll out. GCCASP is designed to support small-holder women farmers to address the challenges posed by Climate Change in the agricultural sector. 

The GCCASP Programme which is currently in an inception phase and will fully take off in 2015 in Rwanda, Niger, Malawi, Ethiopiaand Cameroon. 

Two high level technical workshops were held in July in Niamey, the capital of Niger, and in Yaoundé, Cameroon on validating a study on Gender, Climate Change and Agriculture. Similar workshops were held in workshops in Ethiopia and Malawi in June.

Participants included Government representatives in gender, agriculture and environment; women farmer organizations, NGOs; development partners, members of parliament, academics and researchers. 

In Niger the workshop was held in partnership with the Government led 3N initiative – Nigeriens Nourish Nigeriens – aimed at improving production and securing livelihoods, particularly in rural areas through a bottom up, grass roots planning approach, with a high level of political commitment, and a focus on women and small holder farmers. 

With support from the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD), the workshop’s objective was produce a plan of support to the Government of Niger for a national programme

on supporting small-holder women farmers to address the challenges posed by climate change in the agricultural sector.

NEPAD’s Special Assistant to the CEO Mr Ibrahim Gourouza Magagi spoke of the need for more coordination of actors on the ground for better results. 

“During the African Union Summit in Malabo, it was highlighted that efforts should be put on Family Farming and on Agro-Industries. African farmers should transform their produce,” said Mr Magagi.

In Cameroon NEPAD joined forces with the Ministry of Women Empowerment and NORAD to hold a three-day consultative programming workshop to support the Government develop a national programme document for the implementation of the programme.

Meeting participants and NEPAD staff

Cameroon’s Minister of Women Empowerment and the Family, Professor Marie Therese Obama said that the meeting not only about women empowerment but also sustainable development through the mitigation and adaptation of Climate Change.

Mrs Estherine Fotabong, NEPAD’s Director of Programme Implementation said:

“Through the GCCASP, we are turning to urgent actions with impact on the ground. It is about empowering women not only on policy and design but also participation on the ground and addressing the Climate Change challenges faced by women smallholder farmers that the NEPAD Agency identified in 2012,” she said.

Through these consultations NEPAD has identified three priority areas: 

• Closing institutional gaps – Mainstreaming of gender in policies, programmes, strategies in the gender, climate change and agriculture sectors. NEPAD will help strength the coordination role of governments for coherence, synergies among different actors in the Agriculture, Gender, Climate Change and Environment sectors.

• Capacity building - will include training women farmers, youth and other vulnerable members of the community in areas such as post-harvest processing, agricultural practices and diversification of agriculture-based livelihoods; communicating weather and climate change information. NEPAD will ensure there is equipment for processing and women are trained to operate that.

• Creation and strengthening of women platform - NEPAD will help to establish women platforms to give an opportunity on decision making, stronger women’s voice and negotiation skills related to access to agriculture inputs. 

The GCCASP Programme which is currently in an inception phase and will fully take off in 2015 in Rwanda, Niger, Malawi, Ethiopia and Cameroon. The number of countries will increase as more resources become available.