THE NEED
Worldwide, over a billion people live in extreme poverty, trapped in impoverished communities surrounded by environmental collapse with limited access to natural resources, education or economic opportunity. Women - caretakers, mothers, community leaders, healers, farmers, artisans, and resource stewards – face the brunt of these hardships. In an effort to care for their families and address the mounting impacts of climate change, pollution, forest eradication, and health crises, women around the world make purposeful commitments to transforming the quality of their communities. Their efforts to sustain and protect their families, cultures, and natural resources are nothing less than heroic.

Decades of global and local environmental degradation disproportionately impact women’s abilities to provide their children with safe water, healthy food, and protected land. The longstanding bias in development programs against women coupled with structural discrimination, (e.g., poverty, prejudice, isolation, violence and lack of political power,) in many societies has engendered an indelible hardship for women around the world. 

Yet it is also widely recognized that the most effective return on investment for development dollars is an investment in women –community caretakers, mothers, environmental and cultural resource stewards.  In the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, 191 governments around the world agreed to “promote the empowerment of women as an effective way to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate environmental sustainability.”

This is a critical moment in history - environmental and financial pressures are at an all time high. The health of future generations and the sustainability of our world’s cultural heritage are predicated on the degree to which women worldwide have their basic needs met and importantly, are supported to be agents of change.

THE OPPORTUNITY
Women are simultaneously among the most vulnerable to ecological crises and the most poised to understand and address their on-the-ground impacts. The implications of environmental destruction for the world’s women, and the critical importance of women’s leadership in responding to these issues, can be seen in multiple arenas:

•    Women and Food. In many communities, women as farmers and food stewards are best positioned to achieve food security, preserving food supplies threatened by disrupted weather patterns and ensuring their families' survival when food is scarce.  Women manage approximately 75 percent of household food production in sub-Saharan Africa; 65 percent in Asia; and 45 percent in Latin America. 

•    Women and Health. Though women are uniquely vulnerable to the health-related impacts of toxic pollution, drought, severe weather, and climate impacts, women remain stewards and champions of family and community health.  Though poverty and discrimination render women 14 times more likely than men to die in a disaster, women coordinate caregiving, administer traditional medicine, and respond to emergencies.

•    Women and Traditional Knowledge. Women's collectively-held knowledge about building wind-resistant structures, planting trees to address erosion, saving seeds, maintaining soil quality, and conserving water can and do protect vulnerable communities from the greatest impacts of flooding.

•    Women and Water. Women worldwide spend a combined total of 200 million hours per day collecting water.  Where water is scarce, women’s work time and likelihood of encountering violence on long treks through remote areas increase.  Women’s empowerment around obtaining safe, clean water can support improved community and regional access to this most precious of resources. 

•    Women and Civic Participation. Women are, by nature and by social design, on the front-lines of decision-making and trends around energy consumption, deforestation, population growth, and natural resource management. Women’s empowerment and civic participation in times of resource instability can support sound policy-making.

•    Women and Leadership. Women take coordinated, practical action for the collective good.  As part of Kenya’s Greenbelt Movement, for example, women planted thousands of trees while receiving a small income and supporting the capture of hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  

In the context of the urgent need for collective international action on environmental protection -- while leaders drag their feet and destruction proceeds apace -- Women’s Earth Alliance bridges women’s strategic positioning as resource stewards, knowledge keepers and community managers, with effective and scalable regional action toward solutions.