Climate change is changing where and when water is available in Africa. Women, who carry most of the water, feel these changes first. RFLD’s policy brief, Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, devotes a chapter to climate change and its effects on women’s access to water. This article sets out what the science says and what RFLD asks of decision-makers.
What the IPCC found for Africa
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessed Africa in detail in its Sixth Assessment Report of 2022. It found that recent extreme swings in rainfall and river flow, of around minus 50% to plus 50%, have had “largely negative and multi-sector impacts across water-dependent sectors (high confidence)”.
The IPCC’s chapter on water adds that water hazards “disproportionately impact vulnerable populations such as the poor, women, children, Indigenous Peoples and the elderly”, especially in the Global South. Between 1970 and 2019, drought caused 7% of disaster events worldwide but 34% of disaster deaths, “mostly in Africa”.
For West Africa, a 2022 fact sheet on the IPCC report notes that temperatures have risen by 1 to 3°C since the mid-1970s, most of all in the Sahara and the Sahel. The region has had “fewer but more intense rainfall events” since the mid-1990s.
Water stress and displacement
The World Meteorological Organization’s report on the state of the climate in Africa in 2021 found that high water stress affects about 250 million people on the continent. It warned that up to 700 million people could be displaced by 2030.
The IPCC’s Africa fact sheet projects that at 1.7°C of warming, 17 to 40 million people could migrate within sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, with more than 60% of them in West Africa. By 2030, 108 to 116 million people in Africa will be exposed to sea level rise, against 54 million in 2000.
Coastal West Africa already pays a price. A 2019 World Bank study estimated that coastal degradation cost Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo USD 3.8 billion in 2017, or 5.3% of their combined GDP.
Why the impact is gendered
When a water source dries up or becomes polluted, someone has to walk further to find another one. In 7 out of 10 households without water on the premises, that person is a woman or a girl, according to the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme.
The UN World Water Development Report 2026 found that a 1°C rise in temperature cuts the incomes of female-headed households by 34% more than those of male-headed households. UN Women estimates that 1.5 billion women and girls live in countries facing high or very high exposure to drought.
A 2024 study in Burkina Faso, by Ilboudo Nébié and colleagues, adds nuance. It interviewed husbands and wives. Women crop farmers reported more water insecurity than their husbands. Among herders, men reported more, because they water the livestock. Livelihood shapes who bears the burden, and policy needs data that can see the difference.
Education suffers too. The IPCC finds that “climate variability and change undermine educational attainment”. Across 33 African countries it assessed, literacy rates average 12.8% lower for women than for men.
Adaptation works better with women
The IPCC is clear on solutions. “Gender-sensitive and equity-based adaptation approaches reduce vulnerability for marginalised groups across multiple sectors in Africa, including water, health, food systems and livelihoods (high confidence).”
Yet money lags behind. The IPCC’s Africa fact sheet notes that annual adaptation finance flows to Africa “are billions of US dollars less than the lowest adaptation cost estimates”. The UN-Water GLAAS 2025 report found that 80% of countries integrate climate into their water and sanitation policies. Only 20% finance measures for vulnerable populations.
What RFLD recommends
The brief asks funders to fund women-led organisations directly to monitor water services and to take part in governance, including through climate adaptation finance. A 2026 policy brief by Sanitation and Water for All and the Institute for Sustainable Futures makes a similar call for direct climate-finance access for women-led organisations.
RFLD also asks the African Commission to encourage its Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa to undertake a thematic study on women and water in a changing climate. States, for their part, should report on climate adaptation measures under Article 15, one of the areas covered by the brief’s reporting checklist. Read the summary of the brief for the full set of recommendations.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
