Climate Governance as Reproductive Governance: The Case for a Rights-Based Approach to African Climate Action

The climate crisis functions as a threat multiplier, profoundly exacerbating pre-existing gender inequalities and systematically undermining the realisation of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) across Africa. Despite the continent's minimal contribution to global emissions, its populations bear a disproportionate burden from climate-induced shocks, from droughts and floods to extreme heat, which disrupt health systems, intensify gender-based violence, and fracture essential supply chains for contraceptives and maternal care (Amadi et al., 2025; Okere et al., 2025). This chapter argues that prevailing climate governance frameworks, from the UNFCCC to the African Union's Agenda 2063, have inadequately addressed the intersection of climate adaptation and SRHR, treating environmental and economic resilience as separate from bodily autonomy and reproductive justice (Colangelo, 2024; Sasser, 2023). Drawing on the distinct potential of the African human rights system, which recognises collective rights and a justiciable right to a healthy environment, this analysis proposes a normative and institutional realignment (Amid, 2025; Thomas, 2025). It advocates for an intersectional, gender-transformative approach that places SRHR at the heart of climate policy and financing, specifically within National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions (Lumonya et al., 2024; United Nations Population Fund, 2025). By forging a unified legal and policy agenda that links climate resilience with reproductive justice, African states can leverage their normative leadership to correct this critical omission, ensuring that climate action not only addresses ecological survival but also fundamentally protects human dignity and rights for the continent's most vulnerable populations.