Blog submitted as a report by Representatives to the United Nations for Women for Water Partnerships (WfWP), Habiba Nefisa Alambo, Kristina T. Nyasangare and Lydia Bernard Jones.
Women’s Leadership at the Centre of Environmental Action
At the Seventh Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), discussions on global environmental priorities repeatedly returned to the reality that environmental action does not succeed without women in leadership. This message shaped the engagement of the Representatives to the UN for Women for Water Partnership (WfWP) and informed their participation in the Green Room side event, Greening Our Horizons: Soroptimists Leading the Way.
The event was convened by the Soroptimist International Club of Nairobi Central, under the Soroptimist International Africa Federation and the Soroptimist International Foundation. It was presented as a women-led environmental initiative with the intention to scale across five African regions. Rather than focusing on a single issue, the initiative connected tree planting, waste management, environmental education, and clean energy advocacy as linked responses to climate injustice. This approach reflected a pattern seen across WfWP’s work: when women and local communities lead, environmental action is more likely to endure and deliver results.
The audience brought together UN-accredited representatives, women leading community-based initiatives, youth climate advocates, and civil society organisations. The setting allowed for exchange across policy and practice, with a shared focus on how women’s leadership can move beyond project delivery and into decision-making.
From Community Action to Decision-Making Power
The session was moderated by Ms. Lydia Bernard-Jones, Representative to the UN and Steering Committee Member of WfWP. Her facilitation kept the discussion grounded and focused on a central issue: how women can shift from responding to environmental crises to shaping the solutions. The panel reflected this range of experience, spanning global leadership, national government, youth activism, and grassroots organising. Speakers included representatives from Soroptimist International and its Africa Federation, youth climate leadership, Kenyan government, local women’s groups, and Women for Water Partnership.
Across the discussion, speakers linked environmental action to health, education, livelihoods and gender equality. Rather than treating climate and water challenges as isolated problems, the panel showed how women-led initiatives address multiple pressures at once, particularly in communities facing climate stress.
Dr. Habiba Nefisa Alambo, Representative to the UN for WfWP, framed her intervention around a central reality of water governance. Women manage water at household and community level, respond first to climate shocks, and stabilise families, yet they remain largely absent from formal decision-making. Her contribution, No Water Security Without Women: Rewriting Power in a Climate-Stressed World, focused on power rather than participation. She argued that the global water crisis is not driven by a lack of solutions or expertise, but by who holds authority over decisions and resources.
Dr. Alambo positioned the Stronger Together! Coalition as a platform designed to shift women from the margins of implementation to the centre of governance, policy design, and investment. She called on institutions at UNEA-7 to work directly with women’s networks to co-create solutions and share decision-making responsibility. Her message was direct: progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) is not possible while women remain underrepresented and underfunded in leadership roles.
Coordinated Advocacy Across UNEA-7
The engagement of WfWP Representatives throughout UNEA-7 reflected these principles in practice. Dr. Alambo consistently linked water security, climate resilience, and women’s leadership across formal and informal spaces, reinforcing that inclusion without authority does not lead to lasting change. Ms. Lydia Bernard-Jones reinforced this message through her role as moderator, ensuring accountability and leadership remained central to the discussion. She also carried WfWP’s advocacy into wider engagement with the Women’s Major Group, including a presentation at the Group’s booth that echoed the same core positions.
Ms. Kristina T. Nyasangare, UN Representative for WfWP, extended this advocacy beyond the side event. Through engagement in parallel sessions and negotiations, she strengthened links between women-led action on the ground and formal policy processes. As part of the Women’s Major Group during the OECPR-7 negotiations, she translated these priorities into concrete language within draft resolutions.
Her interventions addressed several resolutions, including climate resilience of coral reefs, sargassum seaweed blooms and antimicrobial resistance. Across these issues, she highlighted how environmental crises affect women differently and why women’s knowledge and leadership are essential to effective responses. This work connected the examples shared during Greening Our Horizons to the formal outcomes of UNEA-7, ensuring women’s leadership was reflected not only in discussion, but in negotiated text.
Taken together, this coordinated engagement showed how advocacy across panels, moderation, informal dialogue and negotiations can reinforce a single message. Women-led environmental action is already happening. The task now is to recognise it, resource it, and place it at the centre of policy and governance.
Greening Our Horizons: Soroptimists Leading the Way demonstrated how local initiatives align with global mandates on climate resilience, water security, and inclusive governance. UNEA-7 provided the platform; Women for Water Partnership and the Stronger Together! Coalition used it to advance a clear pathway forward—one grounded in shared leadership, accountability, and practical action.
Read the full report as submitred by Representatives to the UN for WfWP: Habiba Nefisa Alambo, Kristina T. Nyasangare and Lydia Bernard Jones.
