Water and Gender in Africa

COP26 , the upcoming climate conference being held in Glasgow between 31st October and 12th November, provides an interesting opportunity to examine the role that women are playing in Africa's current fight on climate change.  In my previous blog post, I looked at Oladosu Adenike's Guardian  article entitled " It makes economic sense for women to lead the fight against the climate crisis ", in which she stated that women in sub-Saharan Africa specifically are 'bearing the brunt of a crisis they did nothing to cause' which is the quote I would like to open this second blog post with (2021).  Urmilla Bob and Agnes Babugura, both South African academics, wrote an interesting overview of the relationship between gender and climate change in Africa in their paper entitled " Contextualising and conceptualising gender and climate change in Africa " (2014). They highlight the fact that it was at COP13 in Bali, 2007, where the Global Gender and Climate Allia...

When beginning my research for this blog, looking at the relationship between  water and gender in Africa, I was astounded by how much material was already out there on this topic; a fact which made choosing a starting point for this blog a difficult task.  Before even beginning to think about the theme of water and gender, I read Binyavanga Wainaina’s article entitled “ How to Write About Africa ” (2005). This was an eye-opening read and highlighted countless mistakes that are commonly made when writing about Africa, many of which I’m sure I would have made as someone that has grown up in the UK knowing very little about the continent of Africa other than that which is filtered into mainstream media. Equally, the only insight I had into “Water and Development in Africa” came from the countless appeals seen on TV during events such as Comic Relief and Red Nose Day. My lack of understanding and insight into this topic was a huge contributing factor in choosing this module and t...