Like in Microfinance, women can be agents of climate change too: Ban ki Moon

Microfinance Focus, Dec. 2, 2009: Citing the success of microfinance movement in many countries, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said it was possible because of the role played by women.

Since they are among the first victims of climate change and enduring social ills, they must also be seen as principal agents for change in attaining the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he added.
“On development, too, we need to think again: of the women who change their communities,” he said. “Consider Bangladesh, where the success of microfinance has transformed the lives of its people, mainly through the empowerment of its rural women.

“Consider also the women who are shaping the policies of their countries through their growing presence in parliament. Our efforts to reach the MDGs and our response to the global economic crisis must place women at the centre of decision-making.”
Turning to the MDGs, the targets adopted at a UN summit in 2000 that seek to slash extreme hunger and poverty, infant and maternal mortality, and lack of access to education and health care, all by 2015, Mr. Ban cited the stark challenges: 93 million children, mostly girls, not in school; a woman dying every minute during pregnancy and childbirth from preventable and treatable problems; millions of women without access to decent work and social security.

“Think of the women who, as a result of desertification linked to climate change, will have to forage even farther and longer for wood and water,” he told the Women’s International Forum that brings together some of the world’s most pre-eminent women.
“Think of the women small-holder farmers who could see their crop yields fall by half over the next decade because of increasingly erratic rainfall. “Think of the women who depend directly on the environment for their livelihoods and for the well-being of their families and communities,” he said, stressing that in most parts of the world, more than half, sometimes 70 to 80 per cent, of the burden is borne by women. “People who have been the least responsible for causing climate change are suffering first and worst from its effects.

With just six days left until the opening of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, Mr. Ban said he was looking to women to take up the call for a fair and effective agreement that will reduce emissions while helping vulnerable communities adapt.

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