In developing countries, the long decades of the battle against malnutrition, and poverty have placed women on the frontline because they actively play significant roles in agricultural food production, processing, and distribution to ensure food security in the communities. Using peer-reviewed papers and reports from credible organizations, this work examines women's constraints in agricultural food production in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).The key findings show that socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional constraints limit women's control of, and access to necessary resources (land, credit, agricultural technologies, information). Additionally, exchanges and connection between remote rural areas and cities are increasingly limited by impassable roads. This has a negative impact on women's ability to access information on agricultural technologies, in a country where the extension services are barely functioning. While in entities close to cities, agricultural input dealers are the main source of information on agricultural technologies for farmers, in remote areas, women value only their endogenous experiences, shared among farmers. On top of these challenges, the depreciation of the local currency (Congolese francs), the volatile security situation, and the impact of COVID-19 on the international and regional trade have also led to an increase in the price of agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) and food commodities, thus exacerbating women's vulnerability. Here, we also address questions about women's limited decision-making power within households (communities), and their low participation in the management of natural resources in DRC where women are poorly represented in decision-making bodies and still have less political influence.

Students are often portrayed as future leaders. Their participation in climate change mitigation would improve when they access climate information and gain a high level of climate change awareness. This study was initiated to assess the Congolese students’ awareness of climate change by focusing on their sources of information on climate change, knowledge about the causes and impacts of climate change and activities that can raise awareness on climate change. Using a convenience sampling technique, we collected data through individual interviews conducted among 1,278 students from 13 universities across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The interview results showed that all students irrespective of their disciplines were concerned about climate change, a phenomenon strongly driven by human activities, such as deforestation (78%), urbanisation (30%), agriculture activities (30%) and transport services (26%). The students’ perceptions of climate change impacts included increase in temperature (82%), decrease in the number of rainy days (66%), proliferation of pests (60%) and increase in the number of malaria patients (39%). The primary sources of information that significantly affected students’ awareness of climate change included environment-related university courses and television broadcasts. The awareness-raising and mitigation actions related to climate change recommended by the students included educating people about good waste management (56%), planting trees (65%) and using the taxes paid by mining companies for the restoration of degraded ecosystems. The students believed that in DRC, all layers of the society (educational institutions, civil society organisations, community members and businesses) are important in building resilience to climate change. This study can guide teachers to focus their educational efforts on shaping pro-environmental behaviour in students.