News
Gender, leadership and climate: 72 women equipped to act in their communities in Niamey
January 21, 2026In Niamey, 72 women from 12 municipalities in Niger took part in a series of refresher training sessions. These activities were held as part of the RÉELS project (Resilience of Ecosystems and Women’s Leadership in the Sahel), implemented by CECI in collaboration with its partners WILDAF, IUCN and CIFOR-ICRAF. The project aims to strengthen women’s leadership in addressing the impacts of climate change.
The training sessions brought together representatives of women’s organizations from 12 municipalities in Niger, over two successive phases. With six participants per municipality, the objective was to strengthen women and community focal points’ capacities on gender, gender-based violence (GBV), leadership, citizen participation, and climate change–related issues.
According to Saratou, the activity is part of a broader strategy to amplify community-level impact. Each trained woman becomes a local awareness-raising focal point, responsible for sharing the knowledge acquired with other women, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and persons living with disabilities. This cascading approach will make it possible to reach more than 43,000 people across the targeted municipalities.
Led by specialists in gender, advocacy and leadership, the training sessions combined theoretical presentations, practical exercises, group discussions and case studies. The participatory approach encouraged the sharing of experiences and the identification of concrete actions rooted in local realities.
Beyond individual capacity strengthening, the RÉELS project seeks to foster the emergence of transformational women’s leadership as a driver of sustainable and inclusive change. It adopts an integrated approach that combines climate resilience, gender equity and peacebuilding in the fragile areas of the Liptako-Gourma region.
Planned over five years (2023–2028), the RÉELS project is implemented in eight regions of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, in collaboration with several partners, including IUCN, CIFOR-ICRAF and WILDAF.
Following these trainings, the facilitators who were trained or refreshed are now moving into a field deployment phase. Over several weeks, they will conduct awareness-raising sessions with women’s groups in their municipalities, with technical support from local services responsible for women’s advancement and environmental protection, as well as CECI teams.
The RÉELS project is implemented by CECI in collaboration with its partners (IUCN, CIFOR-ICRAF and WILDAF) and is supported financially by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada.