This explainer by the Institute for Sustainable Empowerment and Justice (ISEJ) argues that women in Zimbabwe carry a disproportionate climate risk due to existing socio-economic inequalities. It details why gender considerations—specifically health, time poverty, and caregiving burdens—must be integrated into the core of national climate legislation
Key Takeaways:
- Why Gender is a Climate Priority:
- Gendered Exposure: Daily responsibilities like farming, water collection, and fuel gathering place women directly on the front line of climate hazards like heat and drought.
- The Climate-Health Nexus: Changing weather patterns exacerbate diseases like malaria and cholera (which heavily affect pregnant women and children) while disrupting maternal healthcare services.
- Time Poverty & Unpaid Care: Shocks force women to travel farther and spend more time fetching basic necessities, increasing unpaid care work and taking away time for education, paid labor, or civic participation.
- Intersectionality: Climate hazards hit women differently based on age, class, disability, and geographic location.
- Core Elements of Gender-Responsive Climate Law:
- Rights & FPIC: Enforcing Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for climate projects with safeguards for women, youth, and marginalized groups.
- Disaggregated Data: Collecting sex-, age-, and disability-disaggregated data to map overlapping climate hazards and gendered risks.
- Twin-Track Mainstreaming: Integrating gender across all climate initiatives alongside targeted measures (e.g., dedicated finance for women farmers, clean energy for maternity centers).
- Representation & Care Infrastructure: Guaranteeing women’s presence on climate decision-making councils and investing in labor-saving technologies (water, sanitation, clean energy) to reduce unpaid care burdens.
- Accountability: Using gender-responsive budgeting, public climate-gender scorecards, and enforceable consequences.
- ISEJ’s Position & Actions: ISEJ submitted recommendations to Parliament regarding the Climate Change Management Bill (HB 05, 2025) to ensure climate adaptation shifts power, rather than reproducing existing inequalities.
About the Publisher:
The Institute for Sustainable Empowerment and Justice (ISEJ) is a Zimbabwean non-profit working at the intersection of law, gender equality, public health, climate justice, and narrative change to translate complex legal frameworks into accessible tools for communities