“Climate Debt, Reparations, and Justice for Rural Women”
Women of the Land Speak
We, the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) a movement of smallholder rural women farmers, food producers, and rural community organizers from across Southern Africa rise in solidarity at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, to demand climate justice, reparations, and accountability.
We speak from the frontlines of the climate crisis from fields scorched by drought and from homes washed away by floods and cyclones. We speak from rivers that have dried and from lands poisoned by mining and deforestation. We speak for the millions of rural women who till the soil, feed nations, and care for life yet are denied voice, resources, and justice.
Africa contributes less than 3% of global carbon emissions, yet we bear the heaviest burden of climate impacts. Our homes are destroyed, our children go hungry, and our livelihoods collapse under a crisis created by powerful nations and corporations. The same forces that colonized our lands now return under the banner of “green growth,” taking our territories for carbon markets, plantations, and false climate solutions.
We declare: This is not climate justice this is green colonialism.
We, the women of the land, demand real transformation; not charity, but reparations; not loans, but justice.
Our Vision – A Feminist Future for Climate Justice
We reject the false promises of carbon trading, geoengineering, and “climate-smart” agriculture (reliant on tech and GMO inputs) that privatise nature and deepen inequality. These schemes do not heal the planet; they protect profit.
Our vision is rooted in the principles of care, solidarity, and sovereignty. We know the real solutions because we live them: agroecology, seed saving, tree planting, water harvesting, and women-led resilience. These are the pathways to life, not destruction.
We affirm that:
- Climate justice must centre the rights, voices, and labour of women.
- Reparations must honour the climate debt owed to Africa and its peoples.
- Climate action must be people-led, not profit-led.
Our Demands to COP30 and Global Leaders
1. Grants, Not Loans – Reparations Now!
We reject debt-based climate finance. Funding must come as grants and reparations, directly supporting women-led and community-driven initiatives that rebuild livelihoods and ecosystems.
2. Cancel the Climate and Colonial Debt
Africa cannot adapt under debt. Cancel unjust national and climate-related debts to enable countries to invest in rebuilding homes, health systems, and farms destroyed by climate disasters.
3. Polluters Must Pay
Industrialised nations and corporations that caused the crisis must pay for loss and damage. Reparations are not aid — they are justice for lives lost, livelihoods and ecosystems destroyed, and generations displaced.
4. Return of Land, Water, and Wealth
Land, forests, minerals, and waters stolen through colonialism and extractivism must be returned to the people. Stop land grabs, deforestation, and destructive mining that rob us of life and heritage.
5. Invest in Real Solutions
Support smallholder agroecology, indigenous seeds, reforestation, renewable energy, irrigation, and disaster preparedness. Strengthen women’s cooperatives and local seed banks that sustain communities.
6. Recognise Women’s Labour and Leadership
Recognise, value, and compensate women’s unpaid care and environmental work. Guarantee rural women’s participation in decision-making spaces from local to global levels.
7. Legally Binding Commitments
COP30 must move beyond empty pledges. We demand binding commitments that end fossil fuels, stop false solutions, and honour the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP).
8. Build People’s Solidarity, Not Profit Systems
We call on rural women everywhere to unite against capitalist and patriarchal exploitation. Globalise our struggle, globalise our hope. The strength of our solidarity is our power.
9. Control over climate solutions
We reglect the wealthy nations and corporations that dictate climate policies, set of rules and demand all responsibilities for African countries to have power in decisions on what affects us.
Our Call from Belém – Women Rising for Life
At COP30, we call on governments, negotiators, and institutions:
Listen to the women who feed the world.
Recognize the debt owed to our lands, our labour, and our lives.
We are not victims waiting for rescue: we are leaders of transformation. We will continue to mobilise, educate, and build movements for climate justice that are rooted in dignity, sovereignty, and care.
“Climate justice is not charity — it is a debt owed. Reparations are not optional — they are an obligation.”
We commit to protecting our seeds, our lands, and our communities for generations to come.
Together, the Rural Women’s Assembly will continue to rise — from the soil, from the seeds, and from the spirit of our collective power.
“Globalize the Struggle, Globalize Hope – Climate Justice is Feminist Justice!”
Issued by the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) – COP30, Belém, Brazil
