Women and Girls: Catalyzing Change in the Climate Crisis
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Session Description
Climate change deepens existing structures of inequality, including gender inequality. Limited access to resources, restrictions of rights, and exclusion from decision-making make women and girls more vulnerable to the effects of a warming planet. But, women can also be the strongest agents of change around mitigation and adaptation efforts if allowed to pursue education, control family planning, and allocate household resources. We’ll delve into the research and hear from powerful leaders effecting change in their communities and beyond.
Time & Location
Time:
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM, Thursday, April 12, 2018
BST
Location:
Rhodes Trust Lecture Theatre
Speakers
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Moderator
Senior Writer, Project Drawdown
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is Senior Writer at Project Drawdown, where she collaborated with Paul Hawken on the New York Times best-seller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Katharine’s interdisciplinary background cuts across research, strategy, and thought leadership, with a focus on exploring, amplifying, and invigorating action to address climate change. Previously, she was Director of Strategy at the purpose consultancy BrightHouse and worked for the Boston Consulting Group and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Based on her doctoral research at the University of Oxford, Katharine published Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change, called “a vitally important, even subversive, story” by The Boston Globe. Her recent fellowships include Aspen Ideas and Summit LA, and her voice has been featured by The Weather Channel, Talks @ Google, and on campuses including Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. Katharine holds a doctorate in Geography & Environment from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in Religion from Sewanee—The University of the South.
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Speaker
Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit that offers farmers around the world a path to prosperity by investing in the agricultural businesses that serve as engines of impact in their communities. Root Capital provides these businesses with the capital, training, and access to markets they need in order to grow, thrive, and create opportunities for thousands of farmers at a time. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has provided more than $1.7 billion in loans to 770 agricultural businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together, these businesses have bought and marketed crops for 2.4 million smallholder farmers, reaching over 10 million people in rural communities.
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Speaker
Founder and Executive Director, Il’laramatak Community Concerns
Agnes Leina comes from Northern part of Kenya, Samburu who are also mainly pastoralists and very traditional in their way of life. She holds a Masters Degree in Rural Sociology and Community Development, from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and a Bachelors, degree in Communications and Community Development from Daystar University, as well as a Post-Graduate Certificate in International Development from the University of Birmingham - United Kingdom.
Agnes is the Founder and Executive Director of Il’laramatak Community Concerns: - whose name denotes care givers, or pastoralists, an Indigenous People’s Organization whose main objective is to restore dignity among Indigenous people, with special emphasis to Girls and Women, and which envisions a society of Indigenous Peoples of Kenya that is free from all forms of discrimination. She is also the Gender Coordinator of IPACC, Indigenous People of Africa Coordinating Committee, and she sits in the Advisory Committee of FIMI, a global Indigenous Women’s network among others.
She has over 15 years of experience in working for Indigenous Pastoralist Communities, especially women and girls, in defending their human rights concerns in Education, Climate Change, Land and Natural Resource rights, Violence against women, Early Marriages and FGM, as well as access to alternative livelihoods among others, at the Community level, National, Regional and International levels
As an indigenous girls’ and women’s rights defender and a social scientist, Agnes has presented various papers concerning indigenous girls and women in various fields, at the UNFCCC, UNPFII, FOKO Conference in Finland,, Indigenous Women s’ Conferences in Lima and Manila, Presented papers at the EGM at UN HQs, attended preparatory meetings for World conference on Indigenous Peoples -WCIP, in Alta, and in New work at the PGA meetings among
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Speaker
Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, World Resources Institute
Wanjira Mathai is the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa at WRI.
She formerly served as Co-chair of WRI’s Global Restoration Council and a Senior Advisor to the Global Restoration Initiative. She is the current Chair of the Wangari Maathai Foundation and the former Chair of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.
An inspiring leader, Wanjira has over 20 years of experience advocating for social and environmental change on both local and international platforms. Over the years, Wanjira has also served important strategic and advocacy roles raising the prominence and visibility of global issues such as climate change, youth leadership, sustainable energy, and landscape restoration, at Women Entrepreneurs in Renewables (wPOWER), the Wangari Maathai Foundation (WMF), and the Green Belt Movement (GBM) the organization her mother, Wangari Maathai (2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) founded in 1977.
Wanjira currently serves on the Board of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and as a Leadership Council member of the Clean Cooking Alliance. Wanjira is one of a few Six Seconds EQ Practitioners in Kenya and was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Women in 2018 and 2020.
