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The use of open fires and solid fuels for cooking is one of the world’s most pressing health and environmental problems, directly impacting close to half the world’s population and causing nearly 4 million premature deaths each year. Women and children are disproportionally affected by this massive global challenge, suffering from toxic smoke, time poverty, and consequences of deteriorating environments.
CLEAN COOKING AS A KEY DRIVER OF SDG SUCCESS
By developing a thriving global market for clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels, we can transform the way the world cooks, saving lives, improving livelihoods, empowering women, and protecting the environment simultaneously. With a continued focus and targeted implementation efforts, clean cooking can directly deliver gains across 10 of the SDGs and contribute to an enabling environment for achieving the entire Agenda 2030, including
Goal 1 – End Poverty
Clean cooking is part of the basic services necessary to lead a healthy and productive life and saves households time and money.
Goal 2- No Hunger
Efficient cook stoves reduce the amount of fuel needed to cook, thus reducing the burden on families who would otherwise have to collect it, buy it, or trade their food for it.
Goal 3 – Good health and Well being
Reducing smoke emissions from cooking decreases the burden of disease associated with household air pollution and improves well-being, especially for women and children.
Goal 4 - Quality Education
Children, particularly girls, are often kept out of school so that they can contribute to household tasks, like cooking and collecting fuel. On average, women and girls can spend up to 10 hours per week collecting fuel for cooking, taking away time that could be spent going to school or studying.
Goal 5 – Gender Equality Unpaid work, including collecting fuel and cooking, remains a major cause of gender inequality. Women and girls, who often spend hours inhaling toxic fumes, are also disproportionately affected by the negative health impacts of cooking with inefficient stoves and fuels
Goal 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
Clean cooking is essential to addressing energy poverty and ensuring sustainable energy security for billions of people.
Goal 8 – Decent work and Economic Growth
Energy access enables enhanced productivity and inclusive economic growth. The clean cooking sector offers many job opportunities
Goal 11 – Sustainable cities and Communities
Clean cooking addresses household and ambient air pollution, resource efficiency, and climate vulnerability.
Goal 13 - Climate change
Up to 58% of black carbon emissions come from burning solid fuels for cooking and heating in homes. Clean cooking solutions address the most basic needs of the poor, while also delivering climate benefits.
Goal 15 - Life and land Up to 34% of wood fuel harvested is unsustainable, contributing to forest degradation, deforestation, and climate change.
On an exchange visit, in the framework of LANDac professional learning program, we visit Laikipia in central Kenyan, where the ever-expanding white settler ranges or wild parks and the small-scale farmers and pastoralists are competing for land, water and other natural resources. The LANDac fellow from Kenya, Fridah Githuku, Executive Director of GROOTS Kenya decided to focus her research on the impact of these large-scale land-based investments in the conservation sector on women’s rights and gender justice.
For years, Fridah is working with GROOTS Kenya in Laikipia county with a very enthusiastic team of grassroots women’s champions, building a grassroots women’s movement in Kenya to empower women and strengthen their position in decision-making processes. But this time, we enter the area with a concrete research agenda, a team of researchers and a women’s activist, which puts a fresh light on the dynamics in the region and the way the work of GROOTS Kenya can further align with macro dynamics of systemic inequality.
After a few focus groups discussions and key informant interviews it becomes clear how wildlife conservation has become one of the dominant businesses in the area. The business model is simple: you try to attract donor money for wildlife conservation, but combine these conservation practices with tourism revenues, luxury resorts and beef ranching. As a consequence, wildlife conservation – generally driven by foreign investors, settlers and philanthropy organizations – is an important driver for the rush for land in the region, already covering over 40% of the land in Laikipia county alone and tremendously competing with local livelihoods.
According to the public information of Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia, internationally known for the protection of the white and the black rhino, the conservancy stretches out over 90.000 acres of savannah grassland. In our discussions with some experts, we find that the conservancy is in permanent search for collaborations with other wild parks, governmental bodies and local communities to expand their area of operation.
As a result of the expansion of conservancies, land in the area becomes ever more expensive and thus less accessible for local pastoralists and farmers, who build a rural livelihood on less than one acre of land. These competing interests in land contribute to increased inequality in the region. As one NGO practitioner puts it clearly, “how can one entity own 90.000 acres while local farmers or pastoralists don’t even have an acre”(interview 31 October)?
The conservancy is contributing to employment generation in the area and has several so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes focusing on agriculture, energy, education, health and conservation educations. Discussing the impact of these programmes with community members, it became clear that these programmes are very ad hoc and individually granted to people. They lack meaningful engagement of local actors to identify their own priorities and to develop a transparent community development agreement.
In addition, elective politics in Laikipia is very much driven by the control of natural resources. The conservancy investors clearly align with local politicians during campaigns and local elections. As advocated by one of the women’s activists, this limits the decision-making power of many community members, including women and youth, as they only can advance their political agenda by aligning with the conservancy agenda and becoming part of the cartel process.
To make wildlife conservancy beneficial for both investors and local communities, the marriage between wildlife conservancy and community development still needs some further research and combined efforts from the different stakeholders, including community members, civil society organizations, investors and local politicians. The first days of research have at least offered a framework to better understand how land is organized in the region and how the concrete interests of the different stakeholders could be better aligned. The next step is a multi-stakeholder dialogue with the investors, civil society organizations and community members to reconsider the CSR programmes and their significant contribution to community development.
About the Authors
Griet Steel is an assistant professor in International Development Studies at the Department of Human Geography and Planning. She is an anthropologist by training and has been involved in several international research projects addressing the interplay between gender, technology, land and mobility and the broader challenges of sustainable urban development. She has extensive field experience in several Latin American countries (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua) and more recently she extended her geographical focus to the African continent.
Fridah Githuku
is the executive director of GROOTS Kenya head of GROOTS Kenya, Fridah leads a grassroots movement that champions land tenure security for women and marginalized groups. Fridah advocates for a bottom-up and rights-based approach toward tenure security and has worked to build and disseminate evidence on the importance of land rights for women through the Women2Kilimanjaro Initiative and LANDac’s Women’s Land Rights Programme. Fridah has a Bachelors in Arts-Economics and Political Science.
Salah Abukashawa
, is the director ESTIDAMA (Centre for land and environmental governance in Sudan). As a land mapping specialist, Salah has worked on land governance for the past seven years. Before he initiated the Centre for Land and Environmental Governance in Sudan (the ISTIDAMA Centre), where he works as a strategist, researcher and lecturer, Salaheldin worked as a manager at the Ministry of Physical Planning. Salaheldin obtained a master’s degree in International Relations, Geoinformation Science and Earth Observations at the University of Twente and a Bachelor’s degree in Surveying Engineering.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the ICPD – a milestone in reproductive health and rights. The Summit aims to bring everyone together: heads of state, ministers, parliamentarians, thought-leaders, technical experts, civil society organizations, grassroots organizations, young people, business and community leaders, faith-based organizations, indigenous peoples, international financial institutions, people with disabilities, academics and many others interested in the pursuit of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
But what was the ICPD? And what does it mean for your rights today?
ICPD stands for the International Conference on Population and Development, a 1994 meeting in Cairo where 179 governments adopted a revolutionary Programme of Action and called for women’s reproductive health and rights to take centre stage in national and global development efforts.
Specifically, the Programme of Action called for all people to have access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including voluntary family planning, safe pregnancy and childbirth services, and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.
It also recognized that reproductive health and women’s empowerment are intertwined, and that both are necessary for the advancement of society.
The Summit will take an integrated approach, covering five themes and highlighting the power of gender equality, youth leadership, political and community leadership, innovation and data, and partnerships to accelerate progress throughout.
Women economic empowerment is about women being confident about themselves, to be able to earn an income and manage their own finances, build their financial security and increase their influence over the household budget, it is about women claiming and holding the power to make their own decisions, to stand up for their rights and say no to violence, discrimination and harmful traditional practices, it is about women being able to decide if, when and who to marry; if and when to have children — and how many; be able to leave a violent relationship and how to save or spend their money.
Women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion has been recognized as key to achieving the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. However, women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion remain unfinished business, with our country not having achieved gender equality and women still being more likely than men to live in poverty.
Women are more likely to be unemployed than men and may women than men work in vulnerable, low-paid, or undervalued jobs. Women remain over represented as contributing family workers and in informal work. Also, in many societies’ men continue to claim ownership of and control over productive resources and assets such as property, inheritance and land as well as financial resources.
These factors combined with discrimination against women in financial markets mean that women are far less likely than men to have checking or savings accounts in their own names.
At GROOTS Kenya we believe that Enabling women’s economic empowerment is not only the “right” thing to do, it is also the “smart” thing to do for women to fulfil their human rights and access equal opportunities than men.
Through GROOTS SACCO, we enhance financial inclusion of grassroots women by we providing opportunities for access to finances though credit to expand their businesses and contribute effectively to sustained economic growth and development.
Download the loan application here .
When it comes to pushing for campaigns in gender equality or women’s empowerment, most tend to focus on women- either by mobilizing or training them. There is so much attention on working with women to help them that we tend to forget an integral contribution towards empowering women which is involving the men. There is a structural discrimination against women, such as gender-based violence, for example, that can only be tackled if men are involved in assisting women. Rather than reinforcing and feeding into patriarchal structural norms, men need to fighting alongside women. This new approach of involving men to understand a woman’s world is the new way forward.
GROOTS has been paving the way forward to engage male champions alongside our female champions for a more sustainable road to empowerment. In the women leadership and governance programme for example, aimed at enhancing the capacity of grassroots women to engage in governance issues, GROOTS follows a ‘Champions for Transformative Leadership’ model. This model comprises a critical mass of grassroots community members including both men, women, and even the youth, to push for women in leadership positions.
One of our male advocates says ‘My name is Aggry and though I am a male, I call myself a grassroots woman.’
A champion for empowering women in increased female political participation, and support in issues related to land and property, Aggry has been a champion in teaching men and women about their rights and Kenya’s constitution.
He says ‘I believe that women know their rights, especially widows. As a man, you have to step out and not remain silent. If we want to achieve our goals of development, we must celebrate our women leaders. Men, let’s give our women the chance to thrive. There were four women in the county assembly, but now we have seven of our own female champions nominated in the 2017 election. Our goal is that by 2019, every woman has money in her pocket.’
Involving women in leadership positions will only contribute to stronger implementation of current laws and policies concerning women. For example, strengthening land titling and ownership of land for women is a sustainable development goal that GROOTS is determined to stand by. Women living in poverty shoulder the highest burden when public land is not used to provide essential public services. To ensure a participatory inventory of public land, leadership skills are provided both to men and women, especially at the grassroots level.
Part of the problem under customary law is that a woman’s right to owning land is often subject to the superior right of a male family member. That is why women must be involved in designing such policies from the beginning. To bring more inclusion and awareness to discuss women’s land rights, both men and women are engaged by GROOTS, which has ensured better protection of land rights for women.
Engaging men for women can also benefit men in the over-arching goal of achieving gender equality. For example, it can lead to a reduced pressure of being the main breadwinner or provider in the family. Involvement of men can lead to lesser misunderstandings or acts of failed communications with spouses thereby contributing to healthier relations with their families. To do so, however, men must be engaged the right way. Tools and strategies include:
As we continue to celebrate the achievements and steps of progress women have made in gender equality, we must shift towards a more holistic approach of mobilizing both women and men. For once, let’s have men and women working alongside each other, rather than against each other.
https://data.em2030.org/stories/feminist-men-advocating-for-female-rights/
Lacking the right or understanding of one’s own sexual and reproductive health is what many rural women across Kenya suffer with, even today. For many women and girls living in rural parts of the country, there is limited access to reproductive health services and modern family planning methods. Women and girls are then faced with risks like early or unintended pregnancies, giving birth in dangerous circumstance, for example.
In Kenya, women under the age of 24 account for about 70% of all unintended pregnancies, out of which only about 50% remain married and are based in rural areas (KDHS 2014). Other reasons for unintended consequences could also be derived from the inability to choose love partners, limited decision making to have sex, lack of information about sex, and the lack of freedom to choose protection for sex.
Health programs need to provide information on girls’ and women’s rights, including their right to live free of abuse. Forty-five percent of women have experienced physical violence; not to mention there are about forty-two percent of women in Kenya who believe that wife beating is justified under at least one condition (UNFPA, 2017). Women who are empowered with access to information, opportunity and agency, can therefore be more likely to access both sexual and reproductive health care (UNFPA, 2019).
Access to sexual and reproductive health rights is after all a basic human right, and measures to address this should be a major priority for the Kenyan government. Many lives can be improved by investing in sexual and reproductive health rights, ultimately paving the way to achieve gender empowerment and equality of the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030. According to UNFPA, this will further reduce poverty, and promote other rights for women such as access to education, and a safe and secure livelihood. The national priority to address gaps in sexual reproductive health rights should be by focusing on family planning interventions.
Research shows that family planning is central in achieving a woman’s safety, security, empowerment, and in reducing poverty. According to United Nation Population Fund, family planning reduces unintended pregnancies, reduces the number of unsafe abortions and lowers maternal mortality and child morbidity brought about by complications during pregnancy and childbirth. If all women living in rural areas with unmet needs for family planning were able to use modern methods of family planning, thousands of lives in rural areas could be saved.
Full provisions of modern contraception with adequate care provided to all pregnant adolescents and their newborns in Kenya would improve a young female’s health by resulting in fewer unintended pregnancies, unplanned births, fewer abortions, and fewer adolescent maternal deaths. Safe and comprehensive information must also be provided regarding contraception that are adolescent-friendly but also community-friendly so as to de-stigmatize adolescent sexual activity and access to reproductive health services.
The country aimed to achieve its family planning national goals as articulated in Vision 2030, but for this to happen, the following needs to be prioritized (DSW, 2014). This is our CALL TO ACTION;
The vision of achieving a safe, accurate, high quality, free, acceptable and voluntary family planning services and information will further aid in empowering and encouraging our women and young girls to lead better, healthier, and happier lives.
Equal opportunities for women and men in leadership!!!!!#InternationalWomen'sDay. Over 100 grassroots women,youth and men from 14 counties in Kenya working with GROOTS Kenya joined residents of Laikipia County for a processiol march today in Nanyuki, Thanks Laikipia County Government and Maendeleo ya Wanawake for the partnership. Women and men champions made a clarion call to all Kenyans to #BEBOLDFORCHANGE and support women vying for political positions.The champions also called IEBC to account for the litany of electoral laws being flaunted by aspirants across the country and demanded that those suspected and found guilty electoral crimes be prosecuted.
The women addressed an array of issues ranging from electoral gender based violence, voter bribery and the needs for free and fair party primaries.
The March was flagged off by Hon.Akaale-CECM Gender Affairs
#ChaguaMama #MamaNaUongozi
