RESEARCHERS' OPINION
PAMACC News - Semi-arid lands (SALs) in developing countries are climate change ‘hot spots’ - or areas where climate change is having grave impacts, such as longer and more frequent droughts. This creates new challenges for jobs and livelihoods in these areas. PRISE Project 4 on 'Enabling environment for private sector/multi-stakeholder action to strengthen resilience to climate change' investigates how the private sector in some of these regions, including businesses owned and run by women, can adapt to climate change and take advantage of new opportunities.
Climate change impacts on businesses owned and run by women in sub-Saharan African SALs
Our research reveals that female business owners in Narok County (one of Kenya’s 47 counties and located in a semi-arid area of Kenya’s Rift Valley region) are more vulnerable to some of the risks of climate change than their male counterparts, due to strong socio-cultural norms around gender roles and resource use and access. Most women in Kenya’s SALs run or own agriculture-based Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) – like small scale trade in cereal, milk and poultry products – all of which are directly affected by climate change. The women we spoke to said climate impacts, such as drought and climate-related livestock disease, lead to losses to their business assets and reduced growth.
Broader impact of climate change
Climate change also leads to a range of broader problems. During drought, men in Narok are forced to sell off land at ‘crisis’ values, far below the actual value of the land. This way of coping can have a debilitating impact on MSMEs led by women, because the money families receive from land sales is rarely invested into female businesses and selling off land means it can no longer be used for farming, or as security to access credit from microfinance institutions.
Female business owners see few adaptation options
Women who own MSMEs in Narok have few options to strengthen their businesses against the negative impacts of climate change. Apart from using community banking and lending networks, they largely depend on reducing stocks at times of water shortages. Tomato traders from Narok South described being forced to cut production by more than half, to limit the area of land that needs to be watered, and so reduce their risk of loss and damage.
Though these kinds of strategies may help businesses to cope in the short term, over time, reducing stocks and production may prove counter-productive, as the resulting loss in profits and business may limit the resources that women have available to help them to cope with future climate change impacts.
What limits adaptation options for women-led MSMEs?
MSMEs in sub-Saharan Africa face business challenges including underdeveloped infrastructure and limited access to finance, technology, markets, skilled labour and information services. Yet cultural constraints and traditionally ‘institutionalised’ gender roles can also prevent female-led MSMEs in Kenya’s SALs from adapting to climate change, by limiting their access to technology, information and financial resources. For example, a partnership between Kenya Hives Limited, the Maasai Mara Bee Keepers Association and bee keeping entrepreneurs in Narok develops market links and provides capacity building services around bee-hive management. This includes training women beekeeping entrepreneurs to improve harvest quality to increase production and profit. But when field officers visit homes to offer on-farm demonstrations of new technologies, like the use of modern bee hives, they are often only allowed to speak with female entrepreneurs with the permission of the women’s husbands.
Women's groups, which are common in Kenya, may provide a forum for such initiatives to engage with women and provide technology demonstrations. Yet the women we spoke to said that the technology implementation also often requires approval from men, who control land and family resources. A woman entrepreneur from Narok said:
“Resource acquisition has remained a big challenge [for women]. Getting loans from the Banks is a major challenge because they need a lot of collateral, which is not easily available. Land in Narok is under the custody of men, while others have no title deeds [meaning land] cannot effectively act as collateral for women. So far, the business environment is still very hostile for women. Even though there is the ‘women's fund’ in Narok, it is a challenge to access it because it targets mostly the very low in the society, so other women in the middle-upper cadre are neglected. It is difficult for women to grow in business.”
Early signs of positive change
In contrast, some women in the Maasai Mara Beekeepers Association have broken through these cultural barriers. These entrepreneurs have been able to access and use modern hives which, because they can be moved from region to region, are more responsive to climate change. The hives are also easier for women to manage because they do not have to be mounted on top of a tree. These women have been able to increase their honey production and sales in the face of climate change, and have become major suppliers of honey in Narok and surrounding areas. Crucially, most of the women benefiting from these hives have had better educational opportunities and more exposure to training seminars, allowing them to learn, share experiences and establish networks and partnerships.
Supporting female-owned SMEs through national gender policies
Kenya recognises the need to mainstream gender equity in various national policies, including the Climate Change Act. Many women also hope that Kenya’s procurement act, which ring-fences one third of government tenders for women, young people and those with disabilities, could also help to break down cultural barriers and spur robust and resilient financial, technological and knowledge opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
Yet even these broader policies are inadequately implemented, monitored and enforced. In development meetings, where concerns around poor policy implementation can be aired, generally only a small number of ‘elite’ women – who can speak and understand policy language – attend. Often these women have lived their lives and attended school outside Narok, which may limit their ability to accurately represent the context and experiences of local women.
More national policies on gender may not be the answer to dismantle socio-cultural barriers to inclusive private sector adaptation. Instead, maybe the way forward requires a move away from simple policy statements, to designing and reinforcing clearer and more inclusive implementation platforms, which ensure that the broader enabling frameworks, established in national policy, are mainstreamed and implemented at ground-level.
Joanes Atela is a Senior Research Fellow while Kate Gannon is a Research Officer
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Three Kenyan businesses are among the 15 winners of this year's Switch Africa Green Seed Awards, announced on Sunday July 23 in New York, USA.
Banana-stem bags, charcoal briquettes from coconut waste and essential oils produced by local communities are among the 15 winners of this year's Switch Africa Green Seed Awards.
Roy Kanai of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said Kenya's Horizon Business Ventures was feted for training and employing seed collection groups to process and market seed oil to local and international cosmetics companies.
Another Kenyan firm, ICOSEED which turns leftover banana stems into fabric for bags, purses and table mats and helps farmers earn money by producing the fabric and sewing of products was also recognised.
Kencoco, also from Kenya, produces and sells charcoal briquettes from recycled coconut waste and charcoal dust, and resells clean cooking stoves. The products are a low-cost alternative to environmentally damaging fuels such as firewood, kerosene and wood charcoal.
The results were announced yesterday during the High-Level Political Forum in New York.
The SEED awards are part of a global programme that recognizes innovative, environmentally friendly start-ups in developing countries, and helps them grow their businesses and lead by example.
Founded in 2002 by the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the SAG-SEED Award provides winners with tailored business and financial advice, help with marketing and publicity, and introductions to funding bodies, policy makers and other avenues of support.
Winners also join a network of more than 200 previous SAG-SEED alumni from 38 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Kanai said the 15 winning enterprises were selected by an independent Jury of international experts out of more than 300 applications. Their activities cover agriculture, waste management, energy, manufacturing, biodiversity conservation and tourism.
Other winners include GCCoffee in Uganda which buys coffee at a premium, then sells it at a price that can cover a donation to the organization Conservation Through Public Health.
Uganda's Masupa Enterprises's briquettes are made from leaves, paper, fruit peels and other waste, and sold together with affordable cook stoves.
Coopérative Sahel Vert encourages the generation and use of clean biogas and organic fertiliser by constructing and maintaining biodigesters in rural areas.
This helps the environment and the sale of surplus agricultural production and organic fertilisers provides extra income.
Lagazel in Burkina Faso makes and sells sustainable solar lamps for households without electricity. Local production provides jobs and solar lamps fight climate change and make for healthier living conditions.
WASHKing in Ghana produces, installs biodigester toilets out of eco-friendly materials for low-income urban households. They also provide training on how to use them and an after-sales services.
Ekasi Energy in South Africa, produces biomass cooking fuel and clean cooking appliances for informal settlements with little or no grid power. These reduce health threats caused by burning wood, charcoal and paraffin, which are usually used for cooking.
Themba Phakama, also of South Africa, is a voluntary association of informal waste pickers providing tricycles and safety gear to its members. The tricycles are used as an alternative to the stolen shopping used by many informal waste pickers.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - A coalition of civil society in Cameroon known as “Cameroon Climate Change Working Group” is pushing for the adoption of climate change legislation in the country as a viable tool to promote and ensure climate justice.
The Climate Change working Group says bringing attention to the growing abuse of agro-giants in vulnerable communities, including how big companies are influencing governments’ environment policies and threatening to undermine the wellbeing of these communities especially in rural areas are potentially devastating and far-reaching for both the people and the environment.
The civil society say they are set to lobby members of parliament and senate to push for the establishment of a bill that will put laws in place to make climate change a high-priority for the current government and future governments to come.
“We are identifying priority areas for legislative initiative for climate change and also looking at some quality legislative response to climate change,” noted Eugene Nforngwa of Bio-resource and Development Centre at the opening of a one day interested partners’ reflection on climate legislation in Cameroon.
The workshop held under the coordination of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA-Cameroon held on July 7, 2017 at Centre Jean XIII Mvolye in Yaounde.
According to Augustin Njamnshi of the Cameroon chapter of PACJA, the world will be tackling climate change on many fronts, and by creating a national and international legal framework for action, development actors can at least ensure there are structures in place to support this fight.
“In close collaboration with local law makers, experts and civil society stakeholders are seeking to provide hands-on assistance to create climate legislation in particular and other climate policy frameworks whether this is an overarching climate law or an amendment to existing legislation that effectively protects human rights and livelihood,” Augustine Njamnshi said.
He noted that in many African countries people still relied heavily on the immediate environment for their livelihood and have subsequently become particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
“We need safeguards to ensure that legislative responses are pro-poor, equitable and the results of a transparent, participatory and inclusive process. An insufficient of domestic legal expertise and resources may further hinder the development adequate legislation,” Njamnshi noted.
The experts recalled that a Presidential decree of 2009 established the National Climate Change Observatory (ONACC) as a national legal implementing body of climate change policies.
The structure places under the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development that supervises and ensure the overall co-ordination of climate change activities and policies within the country.
Accordingly the organs has as responsibilities to establish relevant climate indicators for monitoring environmental policy carry out prospective analyses to provide a vision on climate change, provide weather and climate data to all sectors concerned and to develop annual climate balance of Cameroon.
It also has as role to educate and promote studies on the identification of indicators, impacts and risks of climate change, collect, and provide policy makers, national and international organisations information on climate change in Cameroon and initiate activities to promote awareness on and provide information to prevent climate change, serve as operational instrument in the context of other activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions among others.
Unfortunately the above structure is still to go fully operational, translating the absence of a strong political drive backed by legislation.
Cameroon like many other countries in the world need a tailored approach, reflecting the specific needs and circumstances of jurisdiction, they noted.
KRIBI, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Michael Wakam stood beside a palm tree in a bushy area in Kribi in the South region of Cameroon and looked dejectedly at the farm land in front of him that was once his.
“It starts from here right over there where you see that palm tree. From there, you move to the right extending to the middle of that building right up to where were are standing” he said showing a vast piece of land which he claimed was grabbed from him by a Chinese company commercial cultivation of rice and cassava.
“We agreed that the land will end right there in the middle of that tree but I came and discovered that they have extended to this level. They have encroached my land almost by one hectare. This is wrong and illegal” he said boiling with anger.
Michael’s story is familiar across Cameroon where locals continue to dispute land with International companies especially Chinese companies.
In September 2015, neighbouring communities of the Lokoundjé and Kribi II subdivisions living close to the farms of Hévéa du Cameroun (Hévécam), a sister company of Chinese group Sinochem International addressed a memorandum to the Cameroonian government in which they accused the company of the of grabbing farming lands, stepping beyond the limits of some of its land concessions. A situation which, according to them, deprived them of a livelihood generally provided by agricultural activities on the lands under dispute.
“Government remained mute to our complaints and the land grabbing continued. This is 2017, two years after the memorandum and nothing has changed” said Michae. “We suspect that they bribed government officials to stay quiet” he added.
Company officials denied the allegations and stressed that the land was acquired from the indigenes in strict respect of the Cameroonian law.
“What always happens is that, villagers usually get excited and confused when this companies come with huge sums of money to buy and develop their land. They only realized that they did not bargain well when the companies start operating” said Nelson Ndi, a Cameroonian working with Camco, a Chinese company that deals in agricultural and construction machinery.
According to two studies carried out separately by Land Matrix, the global watchdog on large scale land acquisitions, and Deborah Brautigam, Director of China Africa Research Initiative at John Hopkins University in the USA, Cameroon is one of the top 10 African countries that have sold the most lands to Chinese agricultural investments.
With 10,120 hectares of lands sold to the Chinese company Shaanxi Land Reclamation General Corporation (operating under the name IKO), to farm maize and rice in the Center region of the country (Nanga Ebola and Ndjoré), Cameroon, Ethiopia and Mozambique have some of the most important Chinese investments in agriculture on the Continent. Cameroon however comes far behind Zimbabwe that sold 100,000 hectares to the Chinese company CWE to farm maize.
Way Forward
“We are thinking of organizing a solid resistance to these land grabbers and demonstrate our resolve to keep our lands. We do not care what happens” said Michael. A move that will certainly end up in violence and probably loss of lives.
The Cameroon Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mining and Arts (CCIMA) has proposed a more sustainable measure to settle the crisis which will possibly not please strong opponents of land grabbing by agro-industrial companies.
The President of the Chamber Christophe Eken, has exhorted the government to carry out a “land reform, to facilitate access to land ownership for investors, especially in the agro-industrial sector”. For businessmen, this reform is to be considered as a “priority”, if the government wants to “increase the competitiveness of the Cameroonian economy”.
Government is yet to react. The request comes in a context marked by civil society organisations blowing the whistle on the land grabbing operated by agro-industrial units, a practice which according to these NGOs, challenges the survival of neighboring communities.
