WECF at COP22: Day One
Follow WECF's participation in the COP22 negotiations in Marrakech. Everyday there will be some report back on the highlights of the day
09.11.2016 |
Strategy Meeting Women and Gender Constituency at the COP 22, copyright: Annabelle Avril (WECF)
Negotiations (The Blue Zone)
As the Conference of Parties (COP22) commences we are mobilising together with organisations from the Women and Gender Constituency’s (WGC) [http://womengenderclimate.org/]network to ensure that voices from the ground are heard and listened to. We began on Sunday (6th Nov) with a strategy meeting going over the WGC’s key demands and planning our policy work. We are very pleased that one of our co-facilitators of the WGC, Priscilla Achakpa, will be participating on behalf of the Nigerian delegation and will be able to make sure that our demands are heard!
WECF & women2030 trainees attending the opening of the COP
We began the day drafting the interventions (speeches delivered during the opening sessions of the different legal documents to be discussed). We noticed quite quickly how the civil society space is shrinking; no longer being allowed to voice our demands during the opening session of the COP22 and we never had the chance to do our first intervention for the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) http://unfccc.int/bodies/body/6406.php as the Parties ran over their time – meaning no one of the civil society got the chance to raise their issues.
Our trainee, who participated in the Women2030 training before the COP22, said: “They have to listen to us! The parties will most likely not read our submissions, so when else will they listen to what we have to say if we are not even given the time to say it.”
Preparation for Getrude’s intervention that was cancelled:
We did however get to do our interventions for SBSTA http://unfccc.int/bodies/body/6399.php & APA http://unfccc.int/bodies/apa/body/9399.php , and they were delivered by our Women2030 trainees:
See Mabel Agba’s speech here (at 3:07:55): http://unfccc.cloud.streamworld.de/webcast/sbi-opening-plenary
Watch Nkiruka Nnaemego’s speech here: http://unfccc.cloud.streamworld.de/webcast/apa-opening-plenary
There was also a special working group on gender equality that convened. Our partner Priscilla Achakpa participated actively as a representative of the Nigerian delegation. The meeting was also followed by our International Executive Director Sascha Gabizon. The evening was rounded off with a huge reception within the blue zone with music and small bites
