Hon. Beatrice Anywar Atim -Minister of State for Environment (MWE) gave  Opening remarks where she  shared that Women in LDCs are continuously prevented from participating in high level conversations starting at village level.  ”Women continue to face various challenges like low education, inaccessibility to health services, and burden of care at family level, among others. ‘she said.

According to Hon Beatrice ,Women  continuously struggling to realize their full potential amidst the climate change crisis. She mentioned that not all hope was lost stating that ,government of Uganda has created opportunities for women to vie for spaces in leadership at national level from 10% to over 40% representation; scholarships to attend higher education; additional 1.5 points at attain higher education; among many other initiatives. She emphasized education and hands-on skilling, as well as economic empowerment as initiatives for women to step-up their game and be empowered to speak up in places of power and influence. She emphasized for women to work together, mentor, and support each other.

Elin  Sigurdarottir – from the ministry of foreign Affairs – Government of Iceland said 25% of the UNFCCC delegates were women. pointing that there  existing inequalities in participation in the COPs. Women still continue to suffer the brunt of climate crises. She diagnosed  that gender inequalities and stereotypes; systemic discrimination (systems have been built to discriminate women leading to systemic inequality of opportunities, hence inequality of outcomes; low labour force participation of women with majority of time spent doing unpaid care work (2.8 hrs more than men). she added that gender equality in Iceland was mainly involuntary but forced through legislation on equal pay; maternity and paternity leave, among others.

Sun Young Sur – United Nations Industrial development organization  (UNIDO) said limited resources allocated to building capacities of young people to participate in global processes like COP where decisions are made; lack of representation of youth at decision making tables at global level; socio-economic and political processes are dominated by the patriarchy and  cultural views that youth and women are unable to make decisions were some of the disablers for progress.

Hon. Winnie Masiko  – the moderator of the session highlighted development of tools and indicators that measure gender inclusion in various projects; planning for women and youth inclusion and participation in various opportunities and processes at the granular level; incorporation of gender in adaptation funds; design and implement effective and sustainable programs by understanding the experiences of men and women as these differ.

She said society recognition of the labour of women; reparations need to be made when it comes to climate change loss and damage (these are both economic and non-economic); having gender markers of the funds allocated towards gender equality; advising that parties need  to be more sensitive to the compositions of their delegates to COP and  supporting youth and women-led organizations to design and implement their programs.