Governing Climate Funds What Will Work For Women?

Summary

As the international community mobilizes in response to global climatic changes, climate funds must ensure the equitable and effective allocation of funds for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Women and girls, disproportionately vulnerable to negative climate change impacts in developing countries, have largely been excluded from climate change finance policies and programmes. This report examines four funds – climate funds and non-climate funds, to draw out the lessons for gender integration in global finance mechanisms. Women and girls must not only be included in adaptive and mitigative activities, but also recognized as agents of change who are essential to the success of climate change interventions. 

Gender Action (GA) prepared this report at the request of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and Oxfam in order to ascertain practices that could ‘work for women’ in climate change financing. GA conducted interviews and desk research to examine the extent to which two non-climate funds and two climate funds integrate gender issues into their policies and investments. Case studies of the two non-climate funds, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (Global Fund) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI Alliance), offer valuable lessons for gender integration in global finance mechanisms. Case studies of the two climate funds, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF), provide insight into specific challenges and opportunities related to gender integration in climate change finance. While the latter present promising examples of gender integration in GEF and AF funded projects, Annex I demonstrates that climate finance funds on the whole still have a long way to go in order to achieve meaningful gender integration in their policies and programs. The best practices and lessons learned provide a valuable blueprint for other climate funds.