On 4th June, women's rights advocates, researchers, and negotiators from across Africa came together for a webinar hosted by the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), in partnership with the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC). The session, moderated by Juliet Nangamba of AMwA, was the first in a three-part series unpacking what COP30's Belém Gender Action Plan (GAP) means for the continent, and what must happen before SB64 and COP31 to make it count.
Peninnah Mbabazi, CESR's Climate Justice Associate, opened the discussion, noting that the conversation provides an opportunity to reflect on these questions while exploring what meaningful implementation of the Belém Gender Action Plan could look like from an African context.
While the adoption of the Belém GAP represents an important achievement for feminist movements and gender advocates, it also reflects some of the challenges facing multilateral climate negotiations today. Notably, foundational human rights language that anchored previous gender mandates under the UNFCCC was not retained in the final text. This development has raised important questions about the place of human rights within global climate governance, and reflects broader global trends where rights-based approaches are increasingly being contested.
Why this moment matters
The Belém GAP is a nine-year framework setting out 27 activities to drive gender-responsive climate action under the UNFCCC through 2034. It was secured through years of sustained feminist advocacy, and speakers were clear that it represents real wins: explicit recognition of structurally excluded groups, new guidelines to protect women environmental defenders, fresh entry points to address care work and violence against women, and stronger coherence across UNFCCC bodies.
Setting the context for the discussion, Juliet Nangamba pointed out that the discussion comes at a particularly important moment. The adoption of the Belém Gender Action Plan at COP30 marked a significant milestone for gender-responsive climate action under the UNFCCC. It reflects years of sustained advocacy by feminist movements, women's rights organizations, grassroots activists, and allies who have worked tirelessly to ensure that gender justice remains central to climate action.
The Plan emerged within a difficult global moment, marked by growing inequalities, intensifying climate impacts, shrinking civic space, rising anti-gender movements, and escalating conflict in many parts of the world. These realities, she noted, shape both the opportunities and the constraints for implementing the GAP over the coming years.
Turning to the text itself, Zukiswa White traced what the new GAP carried forward from the earlier Lima Work Programme on Gender, and what it lost. Chief among the losses, she noted, is the human rights language that had anchored the Lima programme but was dropped from the GAP's preamble, a reflection, she argued, of a broader global backlash against rights-based approaches. White also flagged a structural weakness: without clear indicators to track progress, accountability is weakened, and chronic underfunding across the Convention risks leaving the plan without the means to be implemented at all.
An African perspective on the Belém GAP
Discussants situated the GAP within Africa's specific reality: a continent responsible for less than 4% of global emissions, yet carrying a disproportionate share of the climate burden, with women and girls absorbing much of that cost while debt and tax injustice squeeze the fiscal space governments need to respond.
The conversation traced the shift from the old Lima Work Programme to the new GAP, asking what genuinely changed, where the priority areas and entry points lie, and what governments should be pushing for in upcoming negotiations. Jackline Makokha, Kenya's National Climate Change and Gender Focal Point (NCCGFP), grounded the discussion in practice with a case study from Kenya, surfacing early lessons and challenges as the country moves from adopting the GAP to actually implementing it.
Maria Matui then unpacked what governments should be pushing for, the standpoint and negotiables African delegations should carry into upcoming subsidiary body sessions, situating the GAP firmly within the continent's own context. A recurring thread throughout her intervention was the GAP's silence on militarism: panelists asked whether governments will move beyond narrow definitions of "gender" to confront the links between war, care work, and climate justice, or whether military budgets will continue to be shielded while climate and gender programmes go underfunded.
What's next
The session closed with reflections from participants on their key takeaways, and a shared sense that incremental progress is not enough. The real test now is whether the Belém GAP becomes a resourced, accountable mechanism for transformative change, or remains a facilitative framework for knowledge exchange.
This was the first of three monthly sessions building toward a shared African feminist position ahead of SB64 and COP31, one that defends what was won, demands what is still missing, and pushes for gender-responsive climate finance that actually reaches the communities carrying the heaviest costs.
In case you missed it; here is the recording for the webinar.
Stay tuned for the next session in this series, as the conversation moves from analysis to a collective agenda for action.