User:Hyaak/Climate change and sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa

Proposed Policy Solutions
With the rise of concerns about climate change's impact on communities, the African Union met in October 2022 to discuss the implications of a green recovery efforts. They created Africa's Agenda 2063 that covered socio-economic transformations that would mitigate the effects of changing geographical developments. Within their strategy they highlighted the intersectionality of climate change and gender problems and why women and youth needed to be included in their plans. This follows a IPCC report from 2007 that marked how climate change would effect food insecurity, chronic diseases, and public health gains.

These proposals are important to the greater wellbeing of African nations because gender aware policies plays an important role in reaching the inclusive agricultural growth to meet the commitments outlined in the Malabo Declaration. Countries like the United States have announced plans to help the continent reach its goal of securing sexual and reproductive health. For instance at the US-Africa Business forum plans were passed to create a regional Transport Compact with Niger and Benin that included $7.5 million for entrepreneurship and training programs for women, to mitigate HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, trafficking in persons risks, and road enhancements to support poor and vulnerable women who sell their goods along the transport corridors.

Uganda - National Climate Change Policy (NCCP)
The Uganda National Climate Change Policy identifies vulnerable populations and highlights them in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. In particular they identify gendered issues that relates to women and children. Their efforts have ben geared towards mitigation through strengthening family planning and reproductive health as a way to influence future population growth. They hope to achieve this through strategies such as Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). The Ugandan government has also pressed for increased education curriculums to ensure that there is increased social awareness about and professionals tasked to deal with risks to reproductive and sexual health associated with climate change.

Impacts on Maternal Health
Climate change contributes to food insecurity and consequently impacts maternal health. This is largely because of the economic consequences of climate change. For example during the Ethiopian famine it was reported that women and infants were more likely to die from inequitable access to food resources.

Specifically, in Africa there are higher rates of malnutrition among women who are pregnant and breastfeeding. This causes negative repercussions on the health of children. Across 19 African countries climate change has causes decreased shifts the birth weights because of the lack of maternal nutrition. Furthermore in cases of natural disaster women are more likely to have negative reproductive outcomes that range from premature delivery to preeclampsia.

The impacts are made worse by infectious diseases that spread faster with the weakened infrastructure and agricultural deficits. In the case of malaria, pregnant women were reported to suffer from a severe infection three times as a non-pregnant women and have a 50% mortality rate. Across the regions of West Africa, central Africa, and east and southern Africa children born from mothers with malaria was also recorded to be twice as likely to be conceived underweight.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Extreme weather events causes increased rates of sexual risk behavior that ranged from condomless sex and transactional sex that causes higher prevalence of infectious and sexual diseases. A study of about 300,000 individuals in sub-Saharan Africa has show that this has caused increased risk of STIs and HIV especially during long periods of drought and long term temperature increases. Furthermore the study showed that younger age groups have higher risks of infection during transactional sex. A study in Lesotho has also revealed that teenaged girls face an additional 11% risk of being HIV-positive following the drought crisis. Migration from climate change also exacerbates the issues as many people see the move as a protective move and do not see how there is a lack of resources to prevent sexual and reproductive health crises.

Climate Migration
With a prediction of 85.7 million climate migrants in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, Africa faces one of the worst refugee crisis of the generation. When entire communities are forced to move during climate change migration there is a lack of access to lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services and programs. Within the process migrant and refugee women face the risk of rape, unwanted pregnancy, and unsafe abortion. This often leads to further issues of depression and social isolation.

Cultural Contexts
During climate induced disasters, sexual and reproductive health issues are overlooked and leads to maternal deaths, child marriage, and unintended pregnancies. This is largely because cultural norms have prevented women from being mobile. Women have often less decision power and resources to move. In Mali women were often left behind when men migrated at the face of changing environments.