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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

Women are key change agents, not just victims

Opinion

By Lynet Otieno | Mar 09, 2025

Gender PS Ann Wang’ombe , First Lady Rachel Ruto , ODM Leader’s wife Ida Odinga and Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga and other female leaders were launching Beijing Report during the International Women’s Day at Tom Mboya University in Homa Bay County. Women now want the State to put money in their hands as Kenya marked this year’s International Women’s **Day.**[James Omoro, Standard]

A week ago, I attended a multidisciplinary event focusing on gender and One-Health approach in Nairobi. Speakers, including scientists from around the globe, did not mention the International Women’s Day (IWD), being marked today, but, somehow, just aligned. At a different three-hour IWD precursor event later, the general focus was on women as victims of gender-based violence.

It felt like a place to just come and lament, and it was good. But beyond offering women a safe place to let out, I felt like asking “what next” for the victims, and wondered if CSOs can also use such gatherings to empower women to be solution providers in ways that will also prevent gender-based violence. Even the 1995 Beijing declaration goes beyond violence. Part of its 12 tenets focus on women and poverty eradication, education and training, health, armed conflict, economy, rights, environment, power and decision making, plus the girl-child. All these seek to promote gender inclusive strategies for all to thrive.
There is opportunity in the One Health concept, which appreciates the intertwined human and animal health, as well as the environment The 19th century concept was formally institutionalised in 2010 as a global strategy by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation, and the World Organisation for Animal Health. With emerging health threats, including zoonotic diseases, those that are transferred from animals to humans, like Covid-19 and ebola, the One Health approach is a great panacea. The WHO estimates that 60 per cent of all known infectious diseases and 75 per cent of emerging ones originate from animals.

Women are the most likely to be exposed to such considering their interaction with livestock, and food. It could have happened in anthrax outbreaks, or Rift Valley Fever (Kenya in 2006-2007), especially in communities where women milk or slaughter animals.

When Ebola struck West Africa between 2014 and 2016, women reportedly accounted for 55 to 60 per cent of the total fatalities in some regions. Of course many were caregivers. When the same struck the DRC, women struggled to get protective gear, training or decision making priorities; with the typical gender disparities in healthcare leadership thriving.

In the face of climate change, a 2022 report by UN Women indicated intensified gender inequalities that make women 14 times more likelier to die in disasters, compared to men. The problems include gender-based violence in IDP camps, where many victims of extreme weather events end up.

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Incorporating gender perspectives to address such problems is therefore important, because men and women have their peculiar strengths. Besides, when diseases break out, men and women, boy and girls, are uniquely affected. No gender can accurately speak for the other, because it is impossible to explicitly describe what you have not felt better than the one enduring it. Acknowledging everyone’s potential, and deliberately involving them in solutions finding is therefore necessary.

At the icipe One Health approach event, women’s critical roles in healthcare, agriculture, and environmental management came out clear. But they were still the minority at the decision-making tables. In Africa, food safety and security, climate change and environmental degradation affect every aspect of human and other lives. The framework will work faster with more women in decision-making roles.

This includes women in rural areas, who may need capacity strengthening on a lot of health and environmental issues, but who are also equipped with indigenous knowledge to respond to, prepare for, or prevent disaster. They are also good peer educators.

As the IWD is marked today, let’s not portray women as just victims of circumstances. Women are the front-line responders, knowledge bearers, and agents of change. Their voices must be heard.