PRESS RELEASE: WEP organizes a Climate Change Negotiation Workshop for African Women

Press Release

Lome, Togo

24th April 2023

Strategizing to engage at COP28: WEP organizes a Climate Change Negotiation Workshop for African Women

Ahead of the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), scheduled to take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,  Women Environmental Programme (WEP) is building the capacity of African women on climate change negotiations and supporting them to strategize to effectively engage at COP28.

As part of the capacity building and strategy, WEP in collaboration with the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC) has organized a 3-day workshop on climate change negotiation for African women in Lome, Togo, from 24th – 26th April 2023.

The workshop, which was declared open by the Minister of Environment, Togo, Monsieur Katari Foli-Bazi, aims to enhance representation and participation of African women at the upcoming climate change conference and other global, regional and national environmental meetings leading to more inclusion of their needs in the outcome of the meetings.

More African women are needed at the table to participate and negotiate for their demands from a more informed and capable position. However, African women’s participation at Climate Change Negotiations is low compared to other women in other parts of the world. This is linked to inadequate knowledge about climate change processes and lack of negotiation skills.  The above challenges have made Africa to consistently lose out on climate change decisions that would address the vulnerability of women and Africa to the impacts of climate change.

It is against this backdrop that WEP, in collaboration with AWGGCC with support from the Climate Action Africa (CAA) project, which is funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by Alinea International, Econoler, and WSP, has organized this training on Climate Change Negotiations for African Women.

The workshop targets members of the AWGGCC, current women negotiators, young women negotiators, UNFCCC gender focal points and CSOs, drawn from different countries and regions in Africa.

For enquiries: Anne-Marie Abaagu, anne.abaagu@wepnigeria.net; John Baaki, johnbaakij@wepnigeria.net