PRIORITY PROGRAM AREAS 

Sustainable Natural Resource Management and Climate Change

As one of the most significant challenges of our time, climate change is responsible for increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, natural resource scarcity, and environmental degradation. There is lack of coping mechanisms such as the capacities and skills, strategies and structures needed to deal with the negative impacts of climate change especially among women.

Climate change and environmental degradation represent a great threat to poverty reduction and to achieving the SDGs. They impact health, food security, nutrition, production, and people’s earnings. Yet given their traditional roles in agricultural production, and as the procurers of water, cooking fuel, and other household resources, women are not only well suited to find solutions to prevent further degradation and adapt to the changing climate – they have a vested interest in doing so. The first step towards tackling the challenges of climate change is empowering women to safeguard the environment.

''We promote the implementation and realization of the rights to Water and Sanitation, community-based women-led natural resources management and climate change alternatives in Uganda, through awareness creation, research, advocacy, Alliance/movement building and capacity building.''

Women Economic Empowerment and Rights

Women are economically unequal to men by virtually every measure. Women are over-represented in precarious, informal and part-time work and are paid significantly less than men, simply because they are women. The gender pay gap continues to exist in every country in the world. As long as women’s economic empowerment lags behind men, gender equality will not be achieved. 

''NAWAD promotes women’s entrepreneurship knowledge and skills for improved livelihood through research, training, establishment of community women scholars, community based enterprises, policy advocacy planning and monitoring.''

Women also undertake the vast majority of care work in the home: looking after children, the elderly and the sick, fetching water and firewood, cleaning, cooking and washing clothes all of which deprive them of time and energy to pursue paid work and participate in decision-making. However, despite making such a vast contribution to our societies and economies, this care work is largely unrecognized, undervalued and uncounted.

When women have sustainable incomes they invest in their communities and families: buying or growing more and healthier food, investing in their family’s health care and medicine, and using their income to pay for their children’s education or training. Economically empowered women create healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable societies.

Governance, Peace and Security

Governance, peace and security is only sustainable if women and girls are fully involved because they bring different perspectives and capacities to formation of inclusive governance, conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction efforts, and strengthens gender justice, and peace; making, keeping and recovery. But they are Women and girls they are continually excluded. This has resulted into prevalence of gender based violence.  Sustainable Development Goal 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions” calls for promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. A peaceful society is one where there is justice and equality for everyone. Peace will enable a sustainable environment to take shape and a sustainable environment will help promote peace.

''We focus on empowering and building the capacity of women and girls so that they can actively and effectively take part in decision making, planning, budgeting, monitoring and assessment of services and enhance government accountability leading to improvement in services and better government performance. We promote advocacy for the implementation of existing human rights and gender equality frameworks and needed legislative reforms for improved gender equity and equality.''