Public policies that advance or hinder rural women’s and young people’s livelihoods and climate justice for all

ActionAid seeks a major paradigm shift to tackle the global climate emergency and gender equality crisis. The discussion paper highlights the key policies that hinder and enable rural women and young people’s livelihoods and climate justice, and identifies key advocacy threats and opportunities for ActionAid’s and allies’ future work.
 
The paper draws together existing knowledge and learning - related to the three overlapping strands of ActionAid’s national, regional and global work: food sovereignty and agroecology, climate justice; natural resource rights and defence of the commons. It urges support for public policies that put women and young people at heart of policies and policy making; policies that are human rights-based and youth-focused, which draw from a feminist analysis, and that increase community access, ownership and control of land, the commons and natural resources. Finally, it highlights the urgency for fully scaled-up and properly implemented laws, policies and practices that help ensure climate justice through a major shift towards food sovereignty and agroecology and a radical transformation towards rebuilding diverse local food systems.