Scale Climate Action by Engaging With Women’s Organizations: Why Climate and Gender Funders Must Work Together

Jul 28, 2020 | Jeannette Gurung
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Global frameworks for climate action, including but not limited to the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, have recognized that they must respect and promote gender equality and women’s rights to be effective and truly transformative. This requires climate finance architecture to be gender-responsive and inclusive to take into account solutions that are working toward gender equality.

Frameworks and policies now exist that articulate gender considerations and uphold women’s engagement as  stakeholders in all four of the main public climate finance mechanisms—the Adaptation Fund, Climate Investment Funds (CIF), Green Climate Fund (GCF), and Global Environment Facility (GEF). This notable achievement is due in part to the sustained and committed advocacy of women’s groups and organizations over the last decade, that have provided advice and guidance to these public funds. In addition, philanthropic funders and individual, institutional and gender lens investors are now identifying climate change as a critical area of their investments as well.