How to Make Locally Led Climate Adaptation Finance More Gender Responsive

Jun 25, 2024 | Ntezi Mbabazi & Rose Pinnington
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Northern donors are making efforts to fund local actors more directly and enable greater local leadership, notably within climate adaptation programming aiming to promote gender equality. And yet, despite the urgent need, progress to directly fund local civil society, national governments and subnational actors is slow. What is hindering this effort?The global commitment by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Parties to increase gender-responsive climate finance is dependent on the ability to achieve locally led aspirations in climate adaptation programming. Localising climate adaptation finance can promote the leadership of women, minority or marginalised groups in climate action, drawing on their knowledge and experiences to build community resilience, improve the responsiveness of climate interventions to local priorities, and address the needs of other vulnerable groups such as children. Supporting women’s rights organisations (WROs) specifically can also challenge patriarchal norms in natural resource ownership.