Women must be at the forefront in protecting the environment

By The Inspirer writer.

Activists have reminded women to take the lead in striving for a preserved environment and always show their will to participate in the activities that target to avail pure water to the community.

Speaking during a Board and General Assembly Meeting organized by Nile Basin Discourse Forum (NBDF) on August 17, 2021, in Kigali,   Crescence Mukantabana, Chairperson of Reseaux de Development des Femmes Pauvres and member of NBDF in charge of gender equity and equality of men and women said that some of the key programmes of water availability and environmental protection should fully involve women as they are the most ones who still struggle and face violence when they go to fetch water and when they go to look for firewoods in the forests.

“A woman must be the first one to participate in the activities and initiatives that aim to avail pure water to the community, it is the reason why we always need to approach her and update her on the available programs in this regard,” Mukantabana said.

Verdiane Nyiramana, the chairperson of Nile Basin Discourse Forum said that they try to continue preserving the environment despite the covid-19 pandemic. She said that a woman has a big role in this initiative to preserve the environment.

“A woman must always be at the forefront of environment preservation and biodiversity conservation.” She said.

The Nile Basin Discourse (NBD) is a regional network of civil society organizations from the 10 countries of the Nile Basin, namely: Burundi, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. This network seeks to achieve positive influence over the cooperation framework, development of projects and programmes under the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), and other Nile-related programmes.

The Nile Basin Discourse Forum-Rwanda intends to hold both the Board meeting and General Assembly to discuss key operational and strategic issues currently facing the forum as well as initiating key interventions to protect and conserve the Nile Basin water catchments in Rwanda.