There has been a spotlight on climate change, and issues related to climate change this year. Finances have been pledged towards mitigating various crises that have emanated due to legacies of extraction, industrialization and environmental degradation.

In Africa, water access, management and distribution remain key issues that affect womn. At UAF-Africa, we know that the water crisis is very personal for women. According to UNESCO (2016) an estimated three quarters of households in sub-Saharan Africa fetch water from a source away from their home and 50% to 85% of the time, womn are responsible for this task. Currently, through climate financing, water management projects are largely privatized leading to womn facing more nuanced struggles with accessing safe and clean water. Typically, due to climate financing being controlled by multilateral finance institutions – projects are largely proposed/bid for by private entities, funded by development institutions and the management of water is shifted to private control, leading to monetization of a natural resource which is a human right. This means that for many living on the margins, the cost of water is now prohibitive and yet this is a vital resource for sustaining life.

The past 12 years of working with informal sector actors, Equality for Growth (EfG) has continued to provide women with access to rights and business knowledge, opportunities, resources, and legal justice. Through utilizing an approach of collaboration, we have worked in partnership with our beneficiaries to empower them in raising their voices and awareness of their agendas.

EfG have trained women market traders to be paralegals and legal community supporters who have been working on preventing and handling Gender Based Violence in marketplaces and deliver free legal aid and support to market traders, through this platform they have been able to reach 10,360 market traders, handled over 630 cases for the past 3 years.