Targeting vulnerable women in climate projects

I'm happy to share the release of the #WiSER White Paper, "Igniting a Global Sustainable Economy," following the impactful discussions at the WiSER Annual Forum during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week - ADSW 2025. This report highlights the critical role of female entrepreneurs in driving climate solutions and provides actionable strategies to bridge gender gaps in finance, scalability, AI, mentorship, and accessibility—especially for women in the Global South. Why This Matters: Women-led ventures are key to unlocking innovation in sustainability, yet systemic barriers persist. This paper outlines 5 recommendations: 🔹 Increase Gender-Focused Investment : Boost funding, financial literacy, and microloans for female-led climate projects. 🔹 Scale Women-Led Ventures : Streamline policies and partnerships to accelerate growth. 🔹 Harness AI & Digital Tools: Bridge the AI literacy and access gap to empower business expansion. 🔹 Strengthen Mentorship and Networking: Build cross-sector collaborations to provide women with the resources to succeed. 🔹 Empower Women in the Global South : Address legal and financial barriers, invest in STEM education, and improve access to markets and resources. Dive into the full report below or on Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company)’s website for insights on turning these strategies into action: https://lnkd.in/dyAFPEP2 Thanks again to my fellow roundtable participants: Lawratou Bah, CFA, Mirella Amalia Vitale, Natasha Shenoy, Hajar Alketbi, Manal B., Mariam Alnaqbi, Shaima Al Mulla

Cost-benefit analysis isn’t neutral—and climate change doesn’t affect everyone equally. That’s the premise behind the new UNDP Gender-Responsive and Socially Inclusive CCBA Guidelines. It’s a big step forward for anyone trying to align climate investments with real-world equity. Here’s why this matters: Women and vulnerable groups bear the brunt of climate impacts, especially in the Global South. Think: drought-displaced communities, informal sector workers, and landless farmers. Yet they’re often excluded from how projects are assessed and financed. These guidelines offer a concrete framework for Ministries of Finance, Planning, and Environment to build gender and social inclusion into climate adaptation and mitigation investment planning. It’s not just about climate-proofing infrastructure. It’s about measuring who benefits—and who doesn’t—from every climate dollar spent. What’s in it for MENA and Africa? MENA countries, increasingly climate-stressed, are pivoting from reactive spending to risk-informed planning. These tools help justify smarter, more inclusive investments. Across Africa, where adaptation needs are sky-high but resources are tight, this approach helps governments and donors prioritize resilient and just projects—not just the biggest or fastest to implement. This isn’t just a technical fix—it’s a mindset shift. One that says economic efficiency must include social equity and climate reality. If you're involved in public finance, climate policy, or sustainable development—especially in the Global South—this is essential reading.

🌍 Working at the intersection of gender and climate justice in the Global South? Here are some principles we uncovered while developing a gender-transformative framework in our recent paper: 📄 Urgent Imperatives: Advancing Gender Equality in Climate Action 💡 A few key takeaways: - Climate change is not the root cause of gender inequity, but it deepens existing inequalities especially for women and marginalised genders. - A gender-transformative approach is essential. This means going beyond inclusion by tackling structural power imbalances, gender norms, and the root causes of inequality. - Solutions must center the agency and lived realities of women and gender-diverse communities. Their participation in decision-making is critical to just and lasting climate action. - The framework foregrounds intersectional vulnerabilities acknowledging caste, class, geography, occupation, and more. - We see real potential in leveraging government schemes but only when these are grounded in the leadership and insights of those most affected. Explore more here: https://lnkd.in/gGn6QrJP Saumya Shrivastava Elizabeth Soby Ankita Bhatkhande Shraddha Mahilkar #GenderAndClimate #ClimateJustice #FeministClimateAction #GlobalSouth #JustTransitions #Intersectionality #GenderTransformativeApproach

My grandmother used to say, ‘If your hands are in the soil, don’t complain about dust, grow something instead.’ That’s what Africa’s women have been doing for decades. Not waiting. Not complaining. But building quietly, strategically, and brilliantly. For too long, the world saw them as vulnerable. But new data is finally catching up to a truth we’ve always known on the ground. A recent study https://bit.ly/3G1fx0A revealed: → Women-led small businesses are not just coping with climate change; they are quietly leading adaptation. → When floods destroy roads, women’s cooperatives reroute supply chains. →When drought hits crops, they shift to drought-resistant varieties and diversify income. → When shocks come, they don’t collapse, they reconfigure. The data confirms it: ↳ Women-led businesses adopt more sustainable strategies, such as crop switching, forming cooperatives, and reshaping markets. ↳ With even modest support, they outperform male-led businesses in long-term resilience. ↳ They do more with less: Less capital. Less access. Less visibility. Yet greater results. Now ask yourself: If this is vulnerability, what does real strength look like? Africa holds over $4 trillion in untapped domestic financial assets: ↳ $455B in pensions ↳ $320B in insurance ↳ $150B in sovereign wealth ↳ $473B in foreign reserves But less than 2% reaches the women building grassroots climate resilience. Not because their models aren’t sound. Not because the returns aren’t strong. But because traditional finance was never built to value the informal, the community-led, the underestimated. From our work across the continent, the proof is overwhelming: ↳ Women-led cassava cooperatives manage microloans and run solar-powered processing hubs. ↳Decentralised energy systems run by women are powering not just homes, but local industries, digital hubs, and value chains. ↳ Young women mapping waste with AI, turning trash into trade, and floods into foresight. These aren’t just projects but blueprints for a new kind of economy. What must change? → Finance must flow differently. Long-term climate capital must also leverage what is within, unlocking pensions, insurance, and remittances. →  Energy must be redefined. Not just light bulbs, but power for agro-processing, mineral beneficiation, and digital economies. →  Policy must be inclusive by design. Women-led SMEs must be co-creators of infrastructure, not afterthoughts. → Data must be people-powered. Credit scores built from Njangi records, mobile transactions, cooperative data, not outdated collateral. Leadership must mean systems change. We cannot solve 21st-century challenges with 20th-century tools. Women must be at the centre of the redesign. Because resilience is not a slogan, it’s a system. And systems that exclude the very people solving the hardest problems are built to fail. Let’s stop admiring resilience. Let’s start financing it. Let’s fund the future by funding her. Dr. Richard Munang

The climate crisis isn't just an environmental issue; it's a profound socioeconomic challenge that is hitting women harder. On the eve of International Women’s Day, the UN FAO has published a report underscoring how women, particularly in agricultural sectors, bear the brunt of climate-related financial hardships. As primary caregivers and food producers, their unique struggles in the face of climate adversity need to be given a voice and organizations and companies need to work together towards targeted, gender-responsive climate actions including: 💪Empowerment through Education: Enhancing educational programs for women in agriculture to include climate resilience and sustainable farming practices. 🛠️Access to Resources: Ensuring equal access for women to land, credit, and tools necessary for adapting to climate challenges. 📖Policy Inclusion: Advocating for the inclusion of women's voices in policymaking and planning for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. 🌐Community Support Networks: Building support networks that help women share knowledge, resources, and coping strategies. 💻Technological Innovation: Investing in and developing technologies that are accessible and useful to women in agriculture. ⚕️Health and Social Services: Strengthening health and social services to support women, who often face additional burdens during climate crises. 📈Data and Research: Conducting gender-disaggregated research to better understand the impacts of climate change on women and to inform targeted interventions. #foodsecurity #IWD #inspireinclusion #healthforallhungerfornone

As leaders from government, the corporate sector and civil society gathered for #COP29, it is essential that they recognize that 753 million women in the most climate-affected countries lack even basic financial tools to protect their families and livelihoods. At the same time, 880 million lack access to emergency digital payments in a crisis. Despite the immense challenges they face, women are often at the forefront of climate response, supporting communities, managing resources, and leading sustainable practices. Policymakers, financial services providers, civil society, and YOU have a role to play in ensuring that women’s financial resilience can be a critical part of building their climate resilience.    Women's World Banking’s new publication, Finance, Climate, and Gender: Empowering Women Agents of Change, spotlights solutions that prioritize women’s #FinancialResilience in climate-challenged regions. To address these issues effectively, financial systems must integrate targeted support, bundling services like savings, credit, insurance, and digital payments with community-based training and #FinancialLiteracy. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gU_HNgEz