– Advertisement –
A new report has shown that climate change, fossil fuel extraction and debt all reinforce gender injustices on their own. The injustices only compound and worsen as the associated and growing crises they create overlap. As a result, Africa is at the frontlines of the global climate, fossil fuels and debt polycrisis that is largely based on unjust systems perpetuating extraction of resources to the Global North.
The report, titled: “Gender, Debt and Fossil Fuels: A Mapping of Key Insights from the African Continent”, which is based primarily on the work of African feminist scholars and practitioners, looks at evidence related to the impact on women and girls related to debt and the structural entrapment of Africa caused by macroeconomic injustice and investment gaps; debt and extractivism driven by neocolonial policies; and energy colonialism and gender injustice related to petromasculinity, embodied risk and the treatment of women involved in fossil fuel resistance.
The report also outlines models for international cooperation ranging from entrapment to sovereignty and offers recommendations on a pathway away from oil, gas and coal towards diverse, resilient and gender-just economies.
Much of the evidence base focuses on women and girls. More research is needed to better understand how these trends impact gender diverse people.
Key findings from the report include:
- Existing unjust economic structures result in African nations prioritising paying off debt over delivering health, education and other critical services. Debt in Africa has doubled since 2020 to more than $1 trillion. Interest on existing debt has doubled in the last 15 years to more than $163 billion as well. Structural adjustment programmes, trade liberalisation and International Monetary Fund imposed austerity have forced African governments to prioritize debt repayments. As a result, more money is being spent to service debt arising from extractive, colonial policies and systems than on public services such as health care and education which have a disproportionate impact on women, girls and gender diverse people. During moments of economic austerity shocks, interpersonal and domestic violence against women and girls can spike.
- Governments are often forced to expand fossil fuel production to service debt, locking in health, economic and security risks. Fossil fuel extraction imposes a spectrum of violence against communities and women and girls are most vulnerable. Whether Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda or Tanzania, women and girls are more at risk to the impacts of land dispossession and displacement by oil and gas projects. Militarisation aimed at securing extraction projects drive repression, surveillance and sexual violence by corporate and state security forces. Fossil fuels also cause environmental destruction that is linked to health and social crises due to pollution, food insecurity, land degradation and water contamination. Women’s and Indigenous civil society movements have been at the frontlines of environmental defense given they bear the greatest brunt of this insecurity and degradation. They face violence as a result.
- Growing loss and damages from climate change and the associated costs are harming lives, communities and livelihoods while increasing gender injustice at the same time. Global warming affects women and girls the most. Existing societal barriers and exclusions means most women do not have land rights and women and girls are excluded from adaptation programs and funding. The lack of climate finance also means that although Africa possesses 40 percent of global renewable energy potential, the continent receives less than two percent of global renewable investment. This puts a just transition to a diverse, safe economy that meets the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals out of reach including gender rights.
- International cooperation is needed to allow for a just transition away from oil, gas and coal. African feminist scholars have outlined steps that could be taken to improve international cooperation which includes advancing a Fossil Fuel Treaty. Nations participating in a Treaty could create a platform for renegotiating and cancelling some external debt to create space for an equitable transition away from fossil fuels towards decentralized, accessible renewable energy for all, and phase out of oil, gas and coal while building diverse, resilient and gender-just economies.
Bemnet Agata, PR & Communications Specialist – Tax Justice Network and Co-author of the report “Gender, Debt and Fossil Fuels: A Mapping of Key Insights from Africa”, said: “Africa is being pushed to drill its way out of debt under a global economic model that treats debt service as sacrosanct. When governments cut health, education and social protection to reassure creditors, the strain does not disappear; it is displaced – into women’s unpaid labour, dispossession and the violence through which fossil fuel extraction is enforced. Women become the shock absorbers of this model, functioning as the hidden subsidy that sustains both debt service and drilling. Any serious conversation about a just transition must begin by naming this political reality.”
Dr. Amiera Sawas, co-author of the report and Director of Research for the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said: “African feminists have long been calling our attention to the myriad ways that debt, fossil fuel extraction and climate change are impacting women’s and girls’ rights. It’s time the international community listened. Despite facing disproportionate risk, women and Indigenous leaders have been at the forefront of calling for a just energy and economic transition rooted in feminist and decolonial principles where all people, societies and nations have equal opportunities to lead and benefit. This includes demanding international cooperation and solidarity via a Fossil Fuel Treaty to support nations to cancel and renegotiate debt repayments and to access fairer finance for renewable energy systems.”
