Chairwoman of the Wellekama Rural Women Group in Luwein, Grand Bassa County, Yatta Binta harvesting rice that was sown just three months prior thanks to capacity-building training and support from the JP-RWEE programme. Photo Credit: WFP/Vannette Tolbert
Press Release
LIBERIA – Women and girls, especially in rural communities, continue to face the brunt of the climate crisis that exacerbates pre-existing inequalities, jeopardizes their food security and feeds instability and migration, warns the United Nations World Food Programme on International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day 2022 focuses on “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow” recognizing the contribution of women and girls around the world who play a crucial role in climate change adaptation and mitigation.
“Women are the bedrock of food security and yet are hardest hit by climate shocks and food insecurity,” said WFP’s Assistant Executive Director, Valerie Guarnieri. “A sustainable future is only possible when women and girls have what they need to adapt to the changing climate.”
In Liberia, the Joint Programme on Accelerating Progress towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (JP-RWEE) project is the flagship joint UN effort for the transformation of the lives of rural women.
Through the application of results-based programmatic approaches that enhance synergies, create opportunities, and promote income generation, food security, and relative self-reliance, WFP, FAO, and UNWOMEN help to transform the lives of rural women and a handful of their male counterparts.
The JP RWEE provided capacity-building training for 14,762 beneficiaries (13,074 women and 1,688 men) in food processing and storage, using innovative, productivity-enhancing, and culturally sensitive technologies for strengthening women and men beneficiaries’ productive capacities including the use of agricultural technologies, improved crop planting, harvesting, preservation and packaging, nutrition[1]sensitive, and climate-smart agriculture. In Luwein, Grand Bassa County, climate-smart agriculture and VSLA (village savings and loan associations) schemes are innovative, productive ventures that the Wellekama Rural Women Group are turning to as sustainable sources of livelihoods.
“We’re standing just like women now. We’re not waiting for men to support us. We’re sending our children to school and providing food in the houses,” said the group Chairlady, Yatta Binta.
The programme has enhanced the group’s capacity to adapt and be more resilient to climate change by providing technical support in setting up irrigation systems in the swamps where flooding had once been a problem during seasons of heavy rains and lack of water during prolonged periods of very high temperatures. The cooperative also received pest control chemicals and benefitted from training on how to properly layout their plots during cultivation as well as how to process, package, and store their yields in a warehouse that was recently built just minutes from their farm.
“We are working seriously, this year we planted bitter balls, pepper, potatoes, okras, and eddoes for food and sold the surplus. The improved rice seed is good, it’s only three months since we planted the rice and today, we started cutting our rice,” said Yatta. “Through the VSLA, people can save money to buy personal effects and so we work side by side unlike before,” she continued.
In a year when humanitarian needs are on an upward trend and aid agencies are stretched thin, supporting communities vulnerable to the harsh realities of the climate crisis is the need of the hour.