A Feminist Toolkit for Care, Food Systems, and Climate Justice
This toolkit supports activists, community organisations, and facilitators across Southern Africa who are working towards more just, sustainable, and gender-responsive food and climate systems. Rooted in popular education, it begins with people’s lived experiences and builds a collective understanding of the structural inequalities shaping care, food, and climate.
Why a Feminist Political Economy Lens Matters
Using a Feminist Political Economy (FPE) approach, the toolkit centres the unpaid and undervalued care work?predominantly done by women?that sustains households, communities, and economies. It examines how gendered power relations, unequal access to resources, and climate impacts intensify vulnerabilities. By linking care, food systems, and climate change, the toolkit challenges policy approaches that treat these issues separately and overlook the realities of working-class African women.
Key Concepts and Approaches
The toolkit introduces essential concepts such as reproductive work, labour power, gender-responsive budgeting, and control over the means of production. These concepts help participants understand how inequality is reproduced, how food systems are shaped by political and economic power, and how climate change multiplies risks for marginalised communities.
Who the Toolkit Is For
Designed with activists in mind?from climate justice organisers to land rights advocates, women’s movements, agroecology practitioners, and policy actors’the resource offers adaptable materials for varying knowledge levels. It aims to strengthen collective organising and support gender-justice agendas in food and climate policymaking.
How to Use the Toolkit
Structured as six stand-alone but interconnected activities, the toolkit blends storytelling, mapping, role plays, group discussions, and analytical inputs. Each activity includes objectives, materials needed, timing guidelines, and facilitator notes. The facilitator is encouraged to adapt sessions to participants’ experiences, validate local knowledge, and connect everyday realities to broader feminist political economy analysis.
Towards Transformative Alternatives
The toolkit highlights pathways for change grounded in care, equity, and sustainability. It encourages participants to imagine alternatives, from strengthened public services to agroecological practices, and to develop advocacy strategies that advance care-centred, climate-resilient food systems across the region.