LIVE: COP26 - Ladies Without Plastic - Africa Educates Her Campaign with Sofonie Dala, Angola - Season 5 | Breakfast with World Bank's Vice President Hafez Ghanem

Women Without Plastic - Swap single use menstrual pads for reusable alternative

Leveraging girls’ and women’s education is a powerful part of the solution to  climate change

BOOM! That's the sound of our new campaign Women without Plastic as key to reduce Climate Change.

Even though girls are significantly impacted by climate change, they are also powerful agents of change, capable of strengthening a country’s response to climate change.

Ladies Without Plastic - Key to reduce our Carbon Footprints

This movement helps to end period poverty in Angola by empowering women and girls in making reusable pads. Disposable pads contains plastic, artificial fragrance and chemical gel. When disposed it takes hundreds and thousands of years to break down in the landfills!

Moreover, the manufacturing of disposable menstrual hygiene products (an almost $6 billion industry) generates a total carbon footprint of about 15 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. That’s the equivalent of burning about 35 million barrels of oil. On average a woman has her period from 3 to 7 days menstruating approximately 468 periods over 38years between ages 13 – 51 years. This implies 2,280 days with her period and uses an average of 11,000 sanitary pads in her life time.

Climate change affects women

We advocate for behavioural change to reduce earth vulnerability to climate change and global warming from disposable sanitary pads. Work on women liberation against harmful restrictions surrounding  menstruation. 

We mobilise women to switch back to the use of reusable sanitary pads and napkins than disposable sanitary pads that have local ecosystem vulnerable to climate change and global warming. 

With an estimated 200 million adolescent girls living on the frontlines of the climate crises, the link between girls´ education and climate change deserves urgent attention. In our cloud platform we explore the powerful role that education can play in tackling climate change.

133 years ago, the disposable menstrual pads grew from a Benjamin Franklin invention created to help stop wounded soldiers from bleeding. However, these cultural norms did not stop technological innovation: the first disposable pads hit the market in 1896. Today, menstrual products are a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry, with prime-time ads and countless products on the market.

COP26: why education for girls is crucial in the fight against climate change

Last week the Glasgow climate change conference also dedicated to recognising gender equality, and the empowerment of women and girls in climate policy and action.

Education for girls can be a pathway for fighting the climate crisis in three key ways:

1. education in both the sciences and social sciences is necessary to address climate change. Girls’ participation in these fields will drive innovation in green technologies as well as a social approach to resilience built on equality

2. formal education can build on women and girls’ existing community-based knowledge regarding disaster risk reduction and help them respond to climate emergencies

3. education creates pathways to more independent decision-making for women and girls around work, family planning and community engagement. It also creates opportunities for leadership and participation in formal decision-making.

Business Breakfast with World Bank's Vice President, Hafez Ghanem

The World Bank Regional Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa, Hafez Ghanem, arrived in Angola on the 8th of this month, for a new partnership with the Angolan Executive. In addition to Hafez Ghanem, the full delegation also includes Sérgio Pimenta, Regional Vice President of the IFC-International Finance Corporation, one of the arms of the World Bank Group (WBG).

The joint visit to Angola, from 8 to 11 November 2021, aimed to discuss the work of the World Bank Group and the new partnership for Angola, focused on the agenda of reforms and economic diversification strategies. Climate change and adaptation, empowering women and girls are other items on the agenda.

During the joint visit, Hafez Ghanem and Sérgio Pimenta met with Angolan Government officials, civil society organizations, development partners and representatives of the private sector. 

Hafez Ghanem was concerned about the poor efficiency of the health and education sectors in Angola, as well as the despair of young Angolans who have been in the unemployment situation for many years and the increased domestic violence against women during the pandemic.

The Digital Entrepreneur Sofonie Dala, had the privilege of presenting to the World Bank delegation the Africa Educates Her Campaign and also spoke about the barriers that prevent Angolan girls from accessing education, caused by poverty, teenage pregnancy, child marriage, cultural norms and practices, poor infrastructure, violence and fragility, Covid-19, etc. 

Sofonie Dala when presenting her new campaign Women Without Plastic - Swap single use menstrual pads for reusable alternative, stressed that education for girls can be a pathway for fighting the climate crisis. This initiative will help to end period poverty in Angola by empowering women and girls in making reusable pads.

Another reason for the visit of the World Bank delegation to Angola, was to evaluate and deepen the partnerships of the Bretton Woods institution with the Government of Angola, which obtained support of 700 million dollars (more than 400 billion kwanzas) this year.

The IFC (International Finance Corporation) is the arm of the World Bank dedicated to supporting the private sector in emerging markets. It works in over 100 countries, using capital, experience and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. For the year 2021, an amount of 31.5 billion dollars is forecast to support private companies and financial institutions in developing countries.