3rd Women's Climate Assembly (WCA)
The Women's Climate Assembly:
Uniting struggles across West and Central Africa for climate justice
- October 7 - 11, 2024
- Filaos Hotel
- Saly, Senegal
The third Women's Climate Assembly (WCA) will be held in Saly, Senegal, from October 7 to 11, 2024. This major African gathering will bring together more than 120 women activists and community leaders from 12 West and Central African countries to discuss the urgent climate crisis facing the African continent under the theme African Women Unite to Defend our Land, Water and Forests!
The overall aim of this year's Women's Climate Assembly is to strengthen and unify women's struggles against polluting extractive industries and false solutions to the climate crisis in West and Central Africa, and to propose women-centered development solutions that enable women, their families and their communities to live decently by preserving their livelihoods at a time of deepening climate crisis. With the Congo Basin and Amazon under threat, this year's WCA will provide a particularly decisive organizational space for African women and communities ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan in November 2024.
OumouKoulibaly, Senegal, CMA 2023
Africa is bearing the full brunt of the climate crisis! Our continent is prey to heat waves, droughts, forest fires, soil drying, cyclones, storms, locust invasions, floods, coastal erosion, rising sea levels and other climatic catastrophes. Since 2000, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya have been among the most affected countries in the world, although their emissions are minimal. The year 2024 was the hottest on record. Temperatures in Africa will be higher than in the past, and will rise faster than the global average over most of the continent The climate crisis is having serious consequences for the African continent, its ecosystems and its people. The frustrating irony is that Africa is grappling with the greatest impacts of global warming, but has contributed the least.
In Africa, women, who are often the main caregivers and are responsible for providing food and water for their families, are bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change. Despite these challenges, African women have been at the forefront of decisive and resilient responses to the climate crisis. They play a crucial role in sustainable agriculture, community leadership and biodiversity protection. However, their visibility and voices are too often under-represented in national and international discussions on climate policy. This is evidenced by the persistent inability of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Conference of the Parties (COP) to find real solutions to the climate crisis, even as the world burns.
Abie Freeman, Liberia, CMA 2023
The COP negotiations continue to be manipulated and undermined by multinational corporations and their government allies, hampering efforts to ensure that the nations that bear historic responsibility for causing and exacerbating the climate crisis commit to urgent action - deeper cuts in carbon emissions and full compensation for the loss and damage caused to the people around the world who bear the heaviest consequences of global warming.
Last year, the Women's Climate Assembly issued a powerful declaration outlining demands for climate justice, reparations and sovereignty for Africa based on consultations in over seventy communities across the continent. They affirmed their right to say NO to the destruction of their lands and forests, their oceans and rivers, by so-called "development" projects that undermine their lifestyles and livelihoods. They also called on the polluters to pay substantial reparations, based on information provided by the affected communities, for the past and present climate and ecological debt owed to Africa.
Organized by a Steering Committee made up of community organizations and their allies, including Lumière Synergie pour le Développement (LSD, Senegal), Green Development Advocates (GDA, Cameroon), Kebetkache Women and Development Resource Centre (Nigeria) and WoMin African Alliance, this assembly follows two successful meetings held in 2022 and 2023, respectively in Port Harcourt and Lagos, Nigeria.
The African Peoples Counter-CoP (APCC) will take place at the same time as the assembly. Organized by the African Climate Justice Collective (ACJC) for the past three years, the APCC is an important forum for unifying understanding of the climate crisis and the failure of the COP negotiations, and for taking joint political action to find solutions from an African perspective. The Women's Climate Assembly is just one of the popular climate assemblies that have traditionally taken place within the framework of the APCCs over the years.
The WCA 2024 is a radical space for African women to share experiences, develop strategies, lead their struggles in solidarity and advocate for transformative climate action and environmentally sustainable development alternatives.
At a time when Africa is bleeding and the Congo Basin, the "lung of the world" as Africa's largest rainforest, is facing an existential threat, it's time for the women of Africa to stand up and get organized!
Fatoumata Kine Mbodji
Lumière Synergie pour le Développement Portable
Connie Nagiah
WoMin African Alliance Mobile: +27 0827300653