One Planet Fellowship—When women inspire the Bill & Melinda Gates and BNP Paribas Foundations
Africa is a continent that is especially vulnerable to climate change, with its agriculture and...
On 8 March 2019, UN Women and BNP Paribas signed a partnership to develop climate-resilient agriculture and women’s entrepreneurship in Northern Senegal, called PAFADD (Projet d’Appui aux Femmes dans l’Agriculture et le Développement Durable, or "project to support women in agriculture and sustainable development").
UN Women strives to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, empower women, and achieve gender equality. In 2014, the organisation launched the worldwide movement HeForShe to promote gender equality. Companies that participate in the movement undertake to make gender equality an institutional priority by committing to promote and establish gender equality, and by investing in community projects that encourage women’s economic empowerment.
To address this challenge, UN Women in Senegal will, with the support of BNP Paribas and BICIS, develop a programme to promote food security in Senegal, as well as women’s entrepreneurship to develop an agriculture that is resilient to climate change.
The project aims to empower 30,000 Senegalese women farmers by 2021 by improving access to:
Women on the African continent contribute substantially to farming production and the processing of products and therefore play a key role in developing food security. In Senegal, women represent just over half of the country’s total population and 70% of the workers in rural areas.
In this country, as on the rest of the continent, gender disparities persist in terms of access to production factors (land, inputs, training, etc.), which tends to be a drastic curb to growth in the sector. In a recent study, FAO estimates that if women had the same access to productive resources that men have, they could increase current agricultural returns by 20 to 30%.
Improving gender equality in the sector would thus contribute both to productivity and to social justice.
The project will help to address the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): (1) no poverty, (2) zero hunger, (5) gender equality, (7) renewable energy, (9) innovation and infrastructure, (10) reducing inequalities, (13) climate action, (15) life on land, and (17) partnerships for the goals.