CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE WORLD'S POOR

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women program @ World Neighbors

April 2007

Overview

 

World Neighbors and Climate Change

The communities that World Neighbors partners with for sustainable development are located in some of the places that will likely experience the most negative impacts as climate change effects become more and more evident. The marginalized communities that we accompany and support are villages that are located in ecologically fragile areas that already experience resource shortages and, at the beginning of our relationship with them, often have very limited opportunities for alternative ways to produce income or maintain their households.

A cornerstone of the sustainable agriculture practices World Neighbors promotes is care and preservation of the natural resources that poor communities so heavily depend upon. In areas such as the Andes, this involves training and farmer experimentation on the positive contributions of soil and water conservation techniques like green manures, cover crops and legumes. On the other end of the scale, farmers learn about the serious health implications of using highly toxic pesticides.

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In Southeast Asia, programs include skill building around the management of conflicts related to natural resources. The need for this work derives from an ever increasing number of demands placed upon forests in countries like Indonesia. While communities often depend on forests for firewood and other uses, businesses are increasingly interested in exploiting these same resources. Well-intentioned government efforts to conserve forests and watersheds through protected zones and movement of communities out of certain areas are resulting in decisions being made without the involvement of the people who have so long depended on those resources. World Neighbors work to build skills in negotiation, advocacy and management, as well as to strengthen collaboration among communities and local organizations is resulting in a more participatory process that produces wider support for the decisions reached. Families who before saw themselves mainly as harvesters of firewood, are now stewards of the forest they depend upon.

A key aspect of World Neighbors work—building skills and confidence among marginalized women—is crucial to their and their families’ ability to adapt to changing situations like the need for alternative means of earning income. Often the first step is working with communities to get local water sources installed, which cuts down substantially on the number of hours women have to devote to water collection and transport and gives them more time and energy to involve themselves in other kinds of activities. Other times, the establishment of a women’s savings and credit group is the initial start. By contributing a very small amount of money per month, and receiving training and experience in financial management, women are able to offer each other small amounts of credit that allow them to start businesses or weather short-term emergencies. In the process, they gain skills and confidence in themselves, and often gain status in their families and communities as others see them accomplish things in the community. In several program areas, for example South Asia and West Africa, the women’s groups commonly work on basic literacy, which gains women a critical basic skill that in turn helps in other kinds of employment.

Because women’s traditional roles often depend a great deal on the availability of natural resources, many times the decisions they make as groups benefit the entire community. For example, in Nepal women’s groups have provided the funding to improve local water availability and quality. One group decided to plant areas in the town that had previously suffered soil erosion and depletion with soil stabilizing plants that also beautified the common areas.

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The community health education provided in local villages is also vital to their ability to prevent and reduce the impacts of water born diseases and those spread by mosquitoes and other insects and parasites. Because information is provided on ways to avoid disease, maintain clean water sources and treat illness when possible using available resources and services, some of this knowledge carries over to situations communities face related to contaminated water due both to scarcity and flooding.

One of the effects of climate change that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists agreed has “likely” been observed and is forecast for the future is increased cyclone activity—hurricanes and tornadoes—in tropical zones. A number of the villages World Neighbors partners with around Lake Atitlán in Guatemala have already confronted some of the realities of these storms. In 2005 Hurricane Stan hit Central America, devastating the Lake Atitlán Basin where World Neighbors has worked since 2001. Over 1,500 people were killed and 8,000 people lost their homes. Food supplies and livelihoods were also devastated both from the storm and the mudslides that followed. For survivors, health concerns quickly arose from contaminated water.

Though World Neighbors is an organization committed to sustainable development rather than emergency relief, we were compelled to quickly respond to villagers’ immediate needs, including shelter, food, and medical care. Our prior relationship with villagers and our knowledge of the culture was extremely important in this response. While many well-meaning aid agencies thoughtfully delivered used clothing to the area, even with their great needs many of the Mayan women were very uncomfortable with clothing that was not traditional. Anticipating this, World Neighbors provided a small fund to a partner organization in the area that was able to provide traditional clothing to 600 of these women.

After emergency responses were made and the situation stabilized to some extent, World Neighbors shifted to the work it does best: working with communities to build skills and implement plans to prevent, when possible, the level of devastation that had occurred. For example, we and our partners found that the high level of deforestation and soil degradation had contributed significantly to the damage caused by Stan, and particularly to the mudslides that had wreaked havoc on homes, farms, businesses and even entire communities. This discovery laid the groundwork for stepping up efforts related to sustainable agriculture practices and community management of resources.

Photos in this issue brief by Natalie Elwell.

 

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