Women’s decisive contribution to the Green Climate Fund (FVC), created to respond to the challenge of global warming, was the center of the debates at the gender workshop organized by the program’s coordinators in this province.

During the event, participants debated the importance of women’s presence in the rehabilitation of productive landscapes, including rural homes and communities, and their positive impact on the good care of water, forests, and nature. Women’s empowerment, according to the IRES projects, is also linked to the improvement of material conditions and the recognition of gender relations in Cuban rural settings and the Local Development projects in Villa Clara’s municipalities.

Doctor in Sociological Sciences Joaquín Alonso noted that in the Life Task, which was kicked off five years ago with international financing, women, with the creation of job opportunities, occupy a preferential place, due to their productive and social contributions, and daily tasks of community work.

Academics from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Marta Abreu Central University of Las Villas shared and transferred knowledge, with participatory techniques, in the development of a project that covers some 20,600 hectares of surfaces invaded mainly by sickle bush, other invasive plants, and soil degradation.

The territories of Santo Domingo, Quemado de Güines and Corralillo, in Villa Clara, are among the seven most vulnerable areas to climate change in Cuba, along with Los Arabos, Matanzas; and Jobabo, Amancio Rodriguez, and Colombia in Las Tunas.

In Cuba, some 35,000 hectares are assisted by IRES, involving some 51,700 farmers, and it is estimated that 46 percent are rural women who are willing to seek food development from a sustainable perspective against the greenhouse effect.

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