Women farmers key to Liberia climate change debate

PATRICK K. WROKPOH in Liberia – WNN Features
In partnership with Panos London Illuminating Voices.

A Liberian woman farmer from Gbabolu threshes rice with her feet. Image: Emily Stanger

Monrovia: On the outskirts of Monrovia, the Liberian capital, in the town of Jah Tondo, I recently saw for myself the real impact of climate change in a tropical developing country.

Jah Tondo is in the lower Western Cluster region of Liberia. Many of the local farms which have always produced rice, the nation’s staple food, have been abandoned because the searing heat has simply destroyed the fertility of the land.

Gender equality to tackle climate change

When delegates meet at the United Nations climate change summit, they try to pursue their common target: how to tackle the warming climate confronting them all.

“In the past we farmed in keeping with a familiar seasonal pattern. But things have changed. When we think we should be planting, harvesting or resting, in fact it’s the opposite, because of the climate.”

- Mrs. Agnes Kortimai
Executive Director, Zorzor District Women’s Care

Some delegates join forces to press towards their common cause. Others try to draw the world’s attention to key issues that, while important, are sometimes overlooked.

Liberia is one of the nations seeking to show the world that it needs to make gender equality central to tackling climate change.

Liberia has direct experience of climate change, not only on its farms but along its coast, where beach erosion has washed away houses and displaced hundreds of people. The country is convinced that to further progress in combating the changing climate requires people to pay close attention to the plight of women and children.

Bringing gender into the mainstream

Benjamin Karmorh was a member of the Liberian delegation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 2008 summit in the Polish city of Poznan. He also leads on climate change at Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency.

A climate justice banner held up by women attendees for the 'Global Day of Action,' a December 2009 earth climate conference sponsored by EarthlifeAfrica and ClimateJusticeNow in South Africa. Image: Duduzile Mathebula/CIVICUS

Karmorh says there is one compelling reason to bring gender issues into the mainstream. “There must be a framework put into place to address women’s and children’s needs” he says, “Because we believe they feel the worst impacts of climate change.”

“We intend to highlight the important role women play, especially in caring for crops, planting trees and ensuring they grow to maturity, and making reforestation happen.”

- Benjamin Karmorh
Liberian delegation, UN Convention on Climate Change 2008

He said Liberia had raised its concern at Poznan and had received overwhelming support from most of the delegates. He added that Liberia would continue pushing the issue, with the next stepping being to ensure its concerns are transformed into a text for negotiation.

Karmorh continued, “Whenever there are climate change impacts, for example flooding, it hampers women’s ability to farm. And, as you may know, in most African settings women are good farmers, and if they cannot farm their children are affected and there will be no food for their families.”

Seasons change for Liberia’s farms

Back on Liberia’s farms, his words find a worrying echo. Mrs. Agnes Kortimai is executive director of Zorzor District Women’s Care, a group working with rural Liberian women involved in agriculture, especially in the interior of Northern Liberia.