We have to take the issues of climate change, SDGs, and financial development together because they all go together. Climate change is a major disaster that's ongoing. When you look at it in terms of what it means for women and girls, it is a great disaster.
I come from a part of the world where I've seen desertification of large tracts of land, where women and girls have to go long distances to get firewood or water to have a livelihood. In a sense, what it means is that the girls are taken out of school because that's what they have to do, and women also lose livelihoods because of that.
We cannot separate one from the other. What climate change does to women and girls, in terms of what it does to their livelihoods and poverty, is a major issue. We have to take it together and we have to work on it in terms of the choices they make in their lives. I believe that the solutions for the planet will also affect their livelihoods to ensure that women can make better choices for their lives.
For example, I look at a region of the world, the Lake Chad region. Lake Chad is now 10% of what it used to be. All of the fish and the agriculture are gone. We have a plan at the United Nations that actually can feed into it to ensure that this lake can come back and bring back livelihoods. Those are the sorts of things we have to do.
In implementing the SDGs and the climate agenda, we have to bring them all together, because it is not one or the other; it's everything together.