By Kabuye Ronald
The president of the United Nations Association Uganda (UNA- Uganda) George Muwanguzi has called for gender inclusiveness in the fight to mitigate and reduce on the impact of climate change since it affects both male and female
Speaking during the Uganda Model United Nations UMUN 2022 conference held at Kyambogo University under the theme: “Gender roles in climate change adaptations”, Muwanguzi emphasized the importance of involving women in the mitigation of climate change as opposed to only involving men since it impacts both genders differently.
He says in Africa, the women have specialized roles thus depriving them of so many things such as access to production resources, ownership of property and general care givers and takers of the homes which puts the focus on men and leaving out women yet they are also impacted especially when it comes to climate change.
“With climate change, although the man continues to take responsibilities of their homes, the women are also impacted directly in their roles such as those who take care of the homes, take care of children and also feed the households. We now see a loss of bio diversity. Most of the resources Women depend on to grow food like rains, land they get degraded and also the burden on woman become more when they have a lot of children which is the case in Africa. The children don’t have food, they are malnourished but still it’s the woman to take care of them and the household” said Muwanguzi
He added that “Unfortunately most of the interventions to mitigate climate change may come in terms of projects that support the men and forget the women thus the need to target and involve the women in such programs so that the responsibilities are shared and well understood by both male and female.”
William Ngabirano, the acting Dean of Students at Kyambogo University urged students and youths to take lead in mobilizing, engaging, sensitizing and finding solutions together with the communities on what can be done to alleviate climate change especially by implementing basic knowledge like keeping a clean and green environment and planting trees.
Naiga Doreen, the president of Uganda Model United Nations said that their voices as youths are being heard so they must use all viable platforms to talk about issues that affect them such as climate change.
She says the conference will help them come up with meaningful, systematic and sustainable solutions for now and the future in mitigating climate change.
