Our project seeks to provide economic empowerment for excluded, exploited and marginalised young women farmers in Badagry, Lagos state, Nigeria. These women are bearing disproportionate economic burden due to sociocultural barriers and climate change, leading to loss of opportunities, markets, and profits, worsened by COVID-19. These barriers include early child marriage, lack of equal access to resources, training, education and participation with men for livelihood, which hinders economic opportunities and absence of a secure means of sustenance. These burdens accelerate poverty, and poor wellbeing, without access to reskilling. Our proposed activities will address these issues by providing sustainable solutions for young rural women farmers to access resources and be equipped with informed knowledge, skill and implements to empower them economically to achieve resilience, sustainable income, economic justice and the capacity to project their voices against exploitation and marginalisation.

The main objective is to give women a voice by improving women’s’ access to skills and resources and economic opportunities, that can enable them gain employment, earn a living, and put these to use in the job market or through entrepreneurship, for economic growth, increased food security and sustainable income.

The change we want to see happen is for women and girls to participate equally with men and boys in accessing resources and opportunities for economic advancement.

INTRODUCTION

Do you know that women are more vulnerable to impacts of climate change due to dependence on natural environment, social inequalities, marginalization, and high engagement in agriculture. As increased temperature and shifting patterns of rainfall affects soil quality, smallholder women farmers in Badagry lose access to quality harvest, sustainable income, nutrition and proper childcare, as they struggle against hunger, health complications and poverty. Driven by the principles of equality, inclusion and diversity, International Center for Environmental Health and Development committed to empowering these vulnerable women to address marginalization, improve their income, food security, access to leadership and decision making.

IMPLEMENTATION

We began our journey by engaging smallholder women farmers, visiting their crop farms, dialoguing with community and traditional leaders, local government officials and policy stakeholders within the Badagry communities to educate them on climate adaptation and mitigation measures, empowering and including women in leadership and decision making, and providing gender-sensitive agricultural support. It was challenging communicating in the local language with the use of interpreters, engaging many women and having to select the rightsholders, collaborating with and tolerating stakeholders who had expectations for their own personal interests. We employed capacity building in climate resilience, mentorship by experienced and thriving women farmers, provided capacity strengthening tools and worked collaboratively with the women to identify and assess their concerns for participatory project ownership. The women gained knowledge of soil testing and quality improvement methods and became empowered with innovative farming techniques to improve the quality of their produce.

IMPACT AND TRANSFORMATION

During our closeout meeting, it was very touching to hear these women speak about the impact of the project on their overall wellbeing and the transformation they have encountered by it. Avoseh Sedowe testified of how she gained knowledge about climate change and the new ways she can now make her planting soil more nutritious, the great support from the mentors assigned to her, and most importantly, how she has for the very first time in her farming career been able to make good income enough to pay for her children’s school fees. Alhaja Agboyi testified of how the project facilitated access to leadership position with male counterparts in the farming cooperative group in Badagry, which hitherto was an exclusive domain of male farmers, thereby reducing marginalization of women.

LESSONS LEARNED

Reflecting on some of the challenges highlighted above, we learnt that we could have engaged better in terms of dialoguing and selection of beneficiaries amongst the overwhelming number of women farmers interested in the project. We also learnt that collaboration with all stakeholders, particularly the rightsholders from planning to implementation builds trusts, fosters inclusivity, ownership and scalability. Towards the last quarter of the journey, we identified the need to discuss and document indigenous climate adaptability approaches used by the women in climate resilience that needed improvement, and to train the women on locally cost-effective methods of production of organic manure and pesticides. These were not part of the initial goals of the project, but they became an important positive addition to the project. From this we learnt the importance of being flexible with project implementation and projected outcomes, where unexpected opportunities may likely surface. Some additional support needed in future to scale up this journey include:

• Establishing innovative Agric-learning hubs and clusters for women
• Creating cross-learning toolkits for groups of women farmers and cooperatives.
• Facilitating agricultural value chain learning and implementation activities to improve income for rightsholders
• Engaging innovative farming technology such as hydroponics and soilless farming to help women diversify their farming activities where they lack access to land, and to challenge denial of land rights to women.

CONCLUSION

Trying is more beneficial than not trying at all for whatever reason. The support of VOICE was a huge foundation for positive social change encountered by Badagry smallholder women farmers. Through this journey they gained a voice and held in their hands the right to amplify their voices against marginalization, and poverty, one woman at a time. This is a collective visioning of all stakeholders-the government most importantly, the community leaders, the civil society and all individuals.

Everyone needs to add their quota to sustainable development, particularly the development of women and girls in our society. What is your own commitment?