The Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) Project is a Government of Uganda Project, funded by the World Bank, implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the Private Sector Foundation Uganda in all districts, Municipalities and Cities. It aims at increasing access to Entrepreneurial Services that enable female Entrepreneurs to grow their Enterprises from micro to small and small to medium in targeted locations, including the host and Refugee districts. The loan offers beneficial terms, including low interest rates of 10% or 10.5% payable in 24 months, and flexible loan amounts ranging from UGX 2,000,000 to UGX 200,000,000, depending on the business nature.
The climate crisis does not affect everyone equally. Women and girls face disproportionate impacts from climate change — largely because they make up the majority of the world’s poor, who are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood. Particularly in rural areas, women and girls are often responsible for securing food, water, and firewood for their families. During times of drought and erratic rainfall, rural women work harder, walk farther and spend more time securing income and resources for their families. This can also expose them to increased risks of gender-based violence, as climate change exacerbates existing conflicts, inequalities, and vulnerabilities. When extreme weather disasters strike, women and children are 14 times more affected than men, mostly due to limited access to information, limited mobility, decision-making, and resources. An estimated 4 out of 5 people displaced by the impacts of climate change are women and girls. Acute disasters can also disrupt essential services, including sexual and reproductive health care, compounding the negative impacts for women and girls.
Women have been at the forefront of environmental conservation as they bring invaluable knowledge and practices that build resilience in a changing climate, for example, by preserving crop biodiversity and seed varieties, protecting pollinators and local bee populations, using natural soil building and fertilization methods, or leaving forests intact. After a disaster, women will likely be responsible for caring for the sick and injured, providing support for their families and helping communities recover and rebuild. And yet, even though women are disproportionately impacted by disasters and are leaders in post-disaster recovery. But they are largely excluded from shaping policies, strategies, and programs to address disaster risk and resilience and still they women have less access to a range of resources, from land rights and access to credit, education and technology. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, farm yields could increase by 20–30 per cent, feeding an additional 100 to 150 million people. This would reduce the pressure to cut down trees for more agricultural land – one of the biggest drivers of climate change.
Given their position on the frontlines of the climate crisis, women are uniquely situated to be agents of change — to help find ways to mitigate the causes of global warming and adapt to its impacts on the ground and having women actively involved in decision-making is critical to recovery and reconstruction efforts. Fully utilizing women’s capacities, knowledge, access to finance and skills can help identify disaster risks and build security for families and communities. Since women make up a big proportion of the population in unbanked communities and those who cannot access formal banking systems in urban areas, they therefore deserve access to finance which are zero-rated, long-term in nature and Impactful to preservation of nature. Still Women shall use such funds to invest in smart agriculture, Water and Sanitation, Watse Management, clean cooking technologies, renewable energy, acquire land for increased food production and planting mores trees. Zero rated financial products shall also transform women entrepreneurs to create new jobs, reduce family dependency, violence and promote equality in the education systems.
The Government, the World Bank and development partners should prioritize funding o women who have shown commitments to green finance, support value addition and production processes that have high response to zero emission.“The environment, after all, is where we all meet, where we all have mutual interest. It is one thing that all of us share. It is not the mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we become” Lady Bird Johnson
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Denis Tukahikaho Ph.D. is the Society for Environment & Climate Finance Professionals.
