Experiences in northeast Nigeria suggest women struggle to participate in climate initiatives unless gender dynamics are carefully integrated.
In 2007, eleven African countries, including Nigeria, joined forces to address the blistering desertification challenge in Africa which has worsened in the last decades, in part due to climate change. Under the auspices of the African Union, they launched the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel (GGW). The international community, including the African Development Bank, is playing a crucial role in facilitating GGW's implementation, especially through financing and by providing technical support.
The initial plan of GGW was to plant a 15 km-wide bank of trees - stretching 7,775 km from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east - to hold back the expansion of the Sahara desert. But the initiative later evolved into a more multi-faceted mission to strengthen resilience, reduce poverty, and foster development through a range of projects across a mosaic of landscapes. Its central aim today is no longer just to restore land, but to use land restoration projects as an avenue to improve livelihoods and wellbeing in a region characterised by widespread poverty.
The new GGW strategy also aims to promote gender equity through "inclusive and people-centred" as well as "gender transformative" approaches. To better understand whether the initiative is achieving these goals of inclusion and gender transformation, I investigated its activities in Azare, in Nigeria's north-eastern state of Bauchi. In this town, a plant nursery project, established in 2019, nurtures drought and disease-resistant seedlings to be planted later in the forest and distributed to farmers. Alongside this, there are also training schemes for women such as in tailoring and knitting in an attempt to provide them with alternative pathways for social connections and financial independence.
I spoke to men and women working in the plant nursery, forest users such as farmers and hunters, local leaders, NGO staff, and federal and state government officials responsible for implementing the GGW projects. Despite promising intentions, our study found that gender norms and social divisions limit women's ability to access, participate in, and benefit from GGW's livelihood opportunities.
"Who will take care of the house?"
The Azare nursery project provides jobs for tens of local youths who as labourers and forest guards. However, men significantly dominate this labour force.
While this is partly because of the physical strength required for some activities, the belief that women belong in the domestic sphere severely limits their ability to participate. As one woman explained: "Women are always in the house or around the house cooking and taking care of the children because that is what a woman is supposed to be doing in our culture...Many men don't want a woman who does not want to be in the house; they think your eyes have opened too much and you are not good for a wife."
Some women revealed that even when they are permitted to work in the nursery in principle, their domestic and childcare duties make further work in the nursery unfeasible. One interviewee recounted being allowed by her husband to join him at the nursery one day. "I didn't follow him even though I want to go - I need the money - because, if I follow him, who will take care of the house, the children, who will cook? It's me," she said.
On rare occasions when women do make it to the nursery in the hope of finding work, patriarchal attitudes persist. Halima, a widow, said she hoped to find employment in the nursery but was told: "A woman is supposed to be at home under the protection and authority of a man and not in public space struggling for income with men".
What about livelihood-strengthening programmes? The ability of women in Azare to participate in projects is also restricted by gender inequalities. Many capacity-strengthening programmes for women are held in big cities, such as Kano, and they require travel and being away for a few days to participate. Several women told us that their husbands refused to let them attend. "My husband said I would be in the hotel alone which is bad for a married woman, so he did not allow me to travel," said Amina.
A quiet voice
In principle, local communities are meant to help shape GGW projects, so the initiatives reflect their desires and needs. However, female interviewees said that they feel less able than their male counterparts to participate and be heard in meetings that decide what kinds of capacity-building projects should be implemented. One respondent said that women's opinions held little sway in discussions.
The opportunities to influence decisions are even rarer for poorer, less educated women. An activist from a local NGO said that women's participation in the community implementation committee was tokenistic. She said that especially less educated women were often "quiet" in meetings, lacked confidence, and feared being seen as "too assertive" by men.
If women were allowed to shape capacity building and livelihood projects, several women told us that they would prefer programmes that teach them how to make "backyard farming" more efficient and profitable. These activities, they explained, do not require them to leave their homes and so align with socially prescribed restraints on their mobility. I did not find any backyard farming initiatives implemented as part of GGW programmes in Bauchi state.
Integrating gender
As climate-induced desertification intensifies across the continent, projects like the Great Green Wall Initiative are essential for building resilience and eradicating poverty. However, as these findings show, simply providing programmes does not guarantee that they will benefit all. Without carefully addressing restrictive local dynamics and attitudes, marginalised groups such as women may be deprived of life-changing opportunities.
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For instance, Halima, who struggles to feed her six children by herself, could have been greatly helped if she had been allowed to work at the nursery. Amina could be much better placed to support her family, especially as the cost of living rises in Nigeria if she could have attended capacity-building training in Kano.
To ensure that climate projects yield positive outcomes for both men and women, project implementers must understand, question, and directly address gender-based inequalities. Rather than being an afterthought, an awareness of gender discrimination and patriarchal attitudes must be integrated through a project's governance, operational procedures, technical expertise, and decision-making structures. International funding organisations can help speed up this integration by supporting training on gender mainstreaming and other related capacity development. As such, the GGW initiative represents an ideal opportunity to advance gender equality, which is a fundamental principle in many international organisations. Consultations with local women can help policymakers shape projects to suit women's social context and preferences, while educational schemes as part of initiatives can help change behaviours by promoting an understanding of gender inequality and how it harms society.
Without these measures, women will continue to be left behind by climate-resilient initiatives.
Dr Modesta Alozie is a Lead Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
