Our Activities

Sustainable Production

Women play a key role in sustainable production, especially in agriculture, and their contributions are often overlooked. They have unique knowledge and skills that can help adapt to climate change and improve food security. Women play a key role in sustainable production as follows;

• 1. Agriculture-Women are often the primary agricultural producers in rural areas. They have a better understanding of their community's nutritional and cultural needs.
• 2. Natural resource management-Women are involved in the management, conservation, and exploitation of natural resources. They often do unpaid work, such as collecting firewood and fetching water.
• 3. Climate change-Women are disproportionately affected by resource scarcity and natural disasters. They have unique knowledge and skills that can help adapt to climate change.

SAPNET empowers women in sustainable production by;

• 1. Encouraging and supporting gender-inclusive policies. Policies that acknowledge the challenges women face can help build climate resilience.
• 2. Increasing access to resources-Women need access to the same resources as men, including land, education, and markets to succeed in life.
• 3. Access to financing- for women to be empowered, they need access to financing, training, and agricultural extension services.
• 4. Decision-making-We work to support women so that they can be fully involved in decision-making to improve the lives of their families and communities.

Natural Resource Governance

Rural women play a crucial role in the management of natural resources and the wellbeing and livelihood of rural households and communities. They account for a significant proportion of the labour force in food systems, working as farmers, harvesters and collectors, seed keepers, fisherfolks, wage earners and entrepreneurs. In Uganda, women make up 45% of the agricultural labour force. However, women in rural areas tend to sustain an even heavier workload due to the out-migration of men. The lack of infrastructure in many areas, including for water and sanitation, and other productive resources and assets, requires that biomass fuels and water are collected, and food materials processed manually. Rural women’s contributions are also essential for conserving biodiversity as they play a leading role as ecosystem managers. They are guardians and defenders of water, seeds, forests, territories and ecosystems. Through local knowledge and experience, rural women often understand their environment and their community's needs better than anyone else. They pass on traditional knowledge in medicinal plants, and they contribute significantly to sustaining agriculture, food security, nutrition and health.

Advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment

Our work on advancing gender equality and women empowerment focus on addressing three priority areas;

• 1. Equal opportunities for leadership, decision-making and effective engagement at all levels
• 2. Equal access, ownership and control over biological resources
• 3. Equal access to benefits from biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, and from the utilization of genetic resources.

Through this programme, we work to address the challenges faced by women including the following;

• 1. Vulnerabilities: gender and development data show that women disproportionately experience poverty, exclusion and the effects of climate change, compared to men. In addition, they often lack access to public services, such as education and health care, and have limited resources.
• 2. Gender-based violence: women face additional challenges simply for being women. These challenges can include sexual harassment, stigmatization, violence, and less opportunities in favour of economic independence.
• 3. Barriers to economic empowerment: Although women farmers are as productive and enterprising as their male counterparts, the gender pay gap in rural areas is as high as 40%. Nationally, over a third of employed women are working on agriculture, forestry and fisheries but less than 15% of landholders are women. As a result, rural women are often less able to access land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets and high value agri-food chains, and obtain lower prices for their crops. Despite all of their contributions, most of rural women’s labour, including care and domestic work, remains invisible and unpaid.
• 4. Exclusion from decision-making processes: rural women are often excluded or underrepresented in decision-making that affects them directly. They are also poorly considered in budget allocations and conservation initiatives. This is largely a result of structural barriers and discriminatory social norms, both within the community and at large.

A few facts and figures:

• 1. Each year, an estimated one third of all food produced ends up rotting in the bins of consumers and retailers, or spoiling due to poor transportation and harvesting practices.
• 2. If people in Uganda switched to energy efficient light bulbs the, country would save millions of dollars annually.
• 3. Should the world population reach 9.6 billion by 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets could be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles.

Water and Gender

Women's rights to water are fundamental human rights that are essential for health, safety, and dignity. Women and girls are often excluded from access to water and sanitation, which can threaten their rights. Access to water and sanitation are human rights. Where females are unable to enjoy those rights, their health is profoundly affected, curtailing their educational and economic opportunities, and denying them their full role in society. Without safely managed water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, women and girls are more vulnerable to abuse, attack and ill-health, affecting their ability to study, work and live in dignity. Improvements to WASH at home, school, work and in public spaces support gender equity. Women and girls must play a central role in designing and implementing solutions, so that services respond to their specific needs.

Women and girls usually have the responsibility of fetching water. This can be a dangerous, time-consuming and physically demanding task. Long journeys by foot, often more than once a day, can leave women and girls vulnerable to attack and often precludes them from school or earning an income. For women and girls, sanitation is about personal safety. Having to go to the toilet outside or sharing facilities with men and boys puts women and girls at increased risk of abuse and assault. Women and girls have specific hygiene needs. A clean, functional, lockable, gender-segregated space is needed, with access to sanitary products and disposal systems, for women and girls to manage menstrual hygiene and pregnancy. Lack of safely managed water and sanitation is an equality issue. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by poor water, sanitation and hygiene services and facilities. However, their voices and needs are often absent in the design and implementation of improvements, thereby ensuring their continued marginalization.

Energy Access and Gender Equality

Energy access and gender equality are closely linked, and women are often disproportionately affected by a lack of energy access. Women are vital consumers, producers, and decision-makers in the energy sector. Women are vital energy consumers, producers and decision-makers who make a crucial contribution to energy security and energy transitions. Building a more secure, fair and equitable energy future hinges on their active participation. Tackling gender disparity in the energy sector is crucial to driving energy transitions forward, otherwise we are leaving a huge pool of talent untapped. To ensure that we reach more women and enhance the diversity of skills and perspectives within the sector, we must proactively consider gender in our policies and planning. Women disproportionately endure the negative consequences of a lack of access to clean cooking fuel supplies. In addition to health risks, a lack of clean cooking prevents many women and girls from accessing education, earning a wage or starting a business that would deliver financial autonomy

Women and Food Security

Women's rights and food are closely linked, as gender inequality can lead to food insecurity. Women's rights to food include access to resources, land, and knowledge, as well as the right to work and earn a living. Food insecurity and its impact on livelihoods are creating ripple effects for women and girls, including health and safety risks, increased sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and decreasing access to education. Women are forced to bear the double burden of employment and household responsibilities, having to become breadwinners as their husbands migrate in search of alternative means of subsistence. SAPNET supports Women leading the response to the food crisis in Uganda.

Women’s rights advocates play critical roles in contributing to improved food security, not only because women are custodians of food and food preparation in their households, but because of their roles as advocates for more gender-responsive food systems and equal land rights. It is essential that women civil society leaders take on leadership roles in humanitarian food assistance to ensure inclusive and gender-responsive policies, planning and response to the hunger crisis. They must be enabled to promote and support women’s access to all productive resources and to apply a gender lens to the impacts of conflicts on food security.

Sustainable Consumption and Production

Sustainable consumption and production is about doing more and better with less. It is also about decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource efficiency and promoting sustainable lifestyles. Sustainable consumption and production can also contribute substantially to poverty alleviation and the transition towards low-carbon and green economies.

Achieving economic growth and sustainable development requires that we urgently reduce our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources. Agriculture is the biggest user of water and irrigation now claims close to 70 percent of all freshwater for human use. The efficient management of our shared natural resources, and the way we dispose of toxic waste and pollutants, are important targets to achieve this goal. Encouraging industries, businesses and consumers to recycle and reduce waste is equally important, as is supporting communities to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption.

A large share of the population is still consuming far too little to meet even their basic needs. Halving the per capita of food waste at the retailer and consumer levels is also important for creating more efficient production and supply chains. This can help with food security, and shift us towards a more resource efficient economy. Sustainable consumption and production is about promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all. Its implementation helps to achieve overall development plans, reduce future economic, environmental and social costs, strengthen economic competitiveness and reduce poverty.

SAPNET is implementing a Sustainable Consumption and Production programme that involves;

• 1. Sustainable Management and Use of Natural Resources. We work with women to achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
• 2. Reducing Food Waste. We work with women to reduce food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
• 3. Responsible Management of Chemicals and Waste. We work with women to achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment
• 4. We work with Women to reduce Waste Generation by substantially reducing waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
• 5. Encourage Companies to Adopt Sustainable Practices and Sustainability Reporting. We are working to encourage companies, small, large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle
• 6. Promote Sustainable Public Procurement Practices. We are working with women to promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.
• 7. Promote Universal understanding of Sustainable Lifestyles. We ensure that women everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.
• 8. Supporting communities and enhancing their Capacities for Sustainable Consumption and Production. We support women and communities to strengthen their capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.