Across Africa, many people suffer starvation and diseases while others immediately after coming free from poverty, meet hostility from climate change.

As they start life a fresh, they are then faced with the implications of climate change that has become a major catastrophe in the last decade as it destroy their crops and also leads to deaths of livestock making it no longer a matter of speculation.

"Most affected are children and women who walk long distances in search of water and food for their families," Mwenda Mithika, the Executive Director of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), said during a workshop on Thursday in Nairobi.

Mwenda called for the atmospheric concentrations to be stabilized in a time frame that safeguard food production, allow agricultural and ecological systems to adapt naturally to safeguard economic development.

Mwenda noted that it was unfortunate that despite being more vulnerable, women's presence is lacking in climate change deliberations and action plans.

He challenged governments to consider incorporating women in climate change deliberations adding that it is through women's involvement that a solution can be found.

Mwenda suggested that climate change projects should be decided by the local people instead of thinking for them yet they are better placed to know what they want given that they are the people affected by the changes.

"The impact of climate change is felt differently by different genders hence the need to entrench gender in climate change issues, " said the Executive Director of the Institute of Environment and Water (IEW) Annabell Waititu.

Waititu noted that sustainable development can only be achieved once gender is mainstreamed in climate discussions adding that failure to recognize gender by the UN Framework on Climate Change is unfortunate.

Even though women's development is slower compared to men's, it is a known fact that women's adaptation mechanisms leads the way in managing climate change, she said.

Waititu said that all development programs should be cut as per the needs of the local people, adding that the international development can never be attained without the involvement of all genders.

"The policy on affirmative action that was drafted by the government needs to be rolled out to women in rural areas so that they may know their rights, Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) Program Officer for natural resources," Chehenyo Kangara said.

She said that despite having the policy and the new constitution in place barriers that block women from owning land still exists.

"Access to farm inputs and market is still below expectation even though it is assumed that women are benefitting from the policy and the new constitution," she added.

Kangara noted that given Kenya's stride in constitutionalism, the constitution has a lot of things to share regionally with other countries.

"Kenya's positioning of environmental conservation makes the country an automatic leader regionally, something that can help reshape climate discussions in the coming conference in Doha," she added.

Mwenda said that developed countries need to cut excessive consumption and pollution and honor their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol by curbing the growth of their emissions. The developed countries should also protect and compensate affected communities

"Damage from disasters, droughts and other adverse effects in the continent are rising rapidly hence calling for compensation," he added.

Mwenda observed that curbing global emissions within a decade requires technology transfers on a scale never before considered and should include removal of intellectual property and full payment of technology transfer to protect developing countries.

As indicated in the convention, the extent of developing countries implementation depends on developed countries implementation of financing and technology.

Mwenda opposed efforts to sell rather than transfer technologies rather than relax intellectual property rights.