Climate action cannot lead to a just transition, without embracing feminist policies. Women and children are 14 times more likely to die due to climate change, while being underrepresented in environmental and climate change decision-making. This is a direct result of underlying power dynamics, colonial structures, and gender roles, constructed by society and further exacerbated by climate change impacts. In order to combat climate change and reach sustainability for all, these structures must be broken up and redesigned. The new German feminist foreign policy is set out to achieve these goals and efforts are needed to implement it – this project will be part of this ambition. The analysis of grassroots level climate actions will inform the implementation of the German feminist policies (the feminist foreign policy and the upcoming feminist development policy) and provide a contribution to more policy coherence in the gender-climate nexus. The project will run for 3 years. 

Strengthen the capacities of climate actors on gender-transformative planning, financing and implementation. It combines two BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany) leadership priorities: feminist development policy and Just Transition as a paradigm for the global transition. Key themes impacting our climate action work includes: holistic, decolonial, intersectional, power-critical analysis as well as human rights-based principals. The analysis of grassroots level climate actions will inform the implementation of the German feminist policies (the feminist foreign policy and the upcoming feminist development policy) and provide a contribution to more policy coherence in the gender-climate nexus. 

Together with local women’s and gender equality organisations we will look into climate action programmes. Based on this analysis, including interviews with focus persons and reviews of good practices, challenges and opportunities for policy coherence in gender just climate financing will be understood and acted upon. The comparison of other feminist foreign policies shall help identifying further structural barriers to equal rights and equal participation in decision-making processes in climate financing. Finally, training and mentoring programmes will support grassroot climate activists as well as leading donors and financial institutes to promote and fund climate actions that centre gender-transformative approaches. 

Selected countries in Africa, Asia, the Caucasus and Latin America.

Our network partners and members of the Women and Gender Constituency