The climate crisis is a gender crisis. Gender inequalities, shaped by social rules and traditions, cause men and women to be affected differently by climate change. Evidence shows that women and girls – especially in rural areas – face greater risks and more severe impacts from climate shocks than men and boys. More severe floods, droughts, storms, heat, and wildfires threaten every aspect of women’s lives – their health, their families, and their livelihoods. As climate-related disruptions intensify, gendered impacts will expand.
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A range of factors drive this heightened vulnerability to climate change. Women typically carry the bulk of unpaid care work, which increases during times of environmental stress. They are often employed in informal settings, such as casual agricultural work, which is highly sensitive to climate disruptions and lacks formal social safety nets. Plus, women often have limited access to the education, information, and tools necessary to anticipate and respond to climate shocks, such as cellphones, insurance, and financing. However, women have the power to be strong agents of change if policies and strategies are put in place to address these multifaceted, climate-induced challenges.
The impacts of climate change are deeply intertwined with existing gender inequalities. As the climate crisis intensifies and mitigation efforts are diluted, it is critical to bring the cross-cutting themes of climate and gender together. By centering the voices, choices, and actions of women and girls in climate responses, we can ensure that their unique perspectives and needs drive effective and inclusive solutions. Breaking down silos between gender programming and financing would allow for holistic and coordinated approaches that address the unique and context-specific challenges endured by women and girls in the face of climate change.
At GHV, our teams have spent the past several years working at the intersection of gender and climate change. Here, we discuss three nexuses where holistic strategies and programs would unleash women’s resilience to preempt and adapt to climate change for the benefit women, their families, and their communities.
Gender inequality exacerbates the impacts of climate change on women, particularly in agriculture across regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Women in these regions heavily depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods such as subsistence farming, fishing, or forest-based activities; in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of women’s employment is in agrifood systems, and in southern Asia, 71% of women work in agrifood systems (1). Women small-scale producers are disproportionately affected due to systemic barriers, including limited access to land, finance, irrigation, and climate-smart advisory services. These obstacles diminish their adaptive capacity and also heighten their vulnerability to climate-related disruptions, such as drought and heat stress. These vulnerabilities can then lead to negative coping strategies that undermine the well-being of women and girls. This can include reduced food consumption and/or the consumption of less nutritious foods in order to prioritize family nutrition, increased labor burdens for women and girls in households (leading to reduced education opportunities for girls), and early marriage to offset financial losses and stressors in the wake of disasters.
Recognizing women as pivotal agents of change is crucial in the fight against the climate crisis. Despite their vulnerability, women’s traditional knowledge and adaptive practices (e.g., seed saving, water conservation) are essential for enhancing biodiversity, climate adaptation and community resilience (2). Focusing on economic diversification and off-farm entrepreneurship, inclusive agricultural services, and climate policies that address women and girls' unique needs and opportunities can significantly enhance resilience, productivity, and women’s ability to make strategic life choices. Integrating gender-focused approaches in climate strategies yields co-benefits that extend beyond immediate adaptation. For example, the Aga Khan Foundation’s Project Mesha in Bihar, India, promotes women’s livelihoods in the goat sector – a value chain that is less susceptible to climate shocks. It establishes and trains pashu sakhis – community-based animal health providers – to offer vaccine, health, and animal husbandry services to women goat rearers. This approach increases income for the pashu sakhi women and the women goat rearers they serve by improving goat health (reducing disease and mortality to below 20%) and increasing herd sizes. The pashu sakhis have emerged as leaders within their community, transforming women’s status and decision making. Interviews with the Aga Khan Foundation revealed that 87% of pashu sakhis report that they decide solely how their work earnings are spent, and 63% report improved social status. Sector-wide scaling of programs such as the pash sakis requires a long-term financial investment. Even more innovative programs could come from a better understanding of the social-technical bundling of elements that need to come together for women to enhance their resilience to climate change in their local contexts.
In another nexus, climate change poses profound threats to women’s and girls’ health, particularly in the context of pregnancy and reproductive care. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and environmental degradation increase the risks of complications such as dehydration, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm birth, and stillbirth. These impacts are compounded by disruptions in healthcare access due to displacement, infrastructure damage, and the breakdown of services during climate-induced disasters. Midwives, particularly those embedded in communities, are uniquely positioned to address these challenges. Their deep contextual knowledge and trusted relationships enable them to deliver essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, and adolescent health (SRMNAH) services even in emergencies.
Working at this nexus is the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), a global organization committed to strengthening midwifery with a network of over 136 midwives’ associations across more than 117 countries. In thier strategic planning, ICM, a GHV partner, has focused on the unique role midwives play in responding to and mitigating the health impacts of climate change on women and girls. As trusted community leaders, midwives are uniquely positioned to respond to climate-related health risks and strengthen local resilience.
As vocal advocates for midwives, ICM is calling for midwives to be integrated into emergency preparedness and climate adaptation planning at all levels. Now is the time to embed climate content into midwifery education, empower midwives as sustainability champions, and support midwifery associations to shape policy, coordinate with humanitarian actors, and ensure SRMNAH services are front and center in crisis response. Together, these efforts position midwives as vital agents in building climate-resilient health systems and empowering women to navigate and lead through the climate crisis.
When we consider women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), it’s evident that they are vital frontline actors in the fight against climate change. Although they contribute the least to the climate crisis, they are among the most affected. These women often serve as first responders, providing essential services such as food, care, education, and clean energy. Despite a global surge in climate finance, averaging $1.3 trillion annually between 2021 and 2022, very little reaches these frontline women. The vast majority, $1.17 trillion, is allocated to mitigation efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Only $68 billion goes to standalone adaptation projects that help communities cope with climate change. Even more concerning, just $23.6 billion – less than 2% of the total – reaches LMICs, the regions most affected by climate change (3).
Though innovative mechanisms like blended finance aim to scale action, they often bypass gender-focused areas in favor of high-return sectors, like energy and infrastructure, while overlooking “softer” yet critical areas like health, education, and gender equality (4). This results in only 3% of bilateral climate aid targeting gender equality as a principal goal. Furthermore, securing funding from multilateral development banks – large international institutions that provide loans and grants for development projects – is often overly complex and bureaucratic (5). These systems, combined with performance-based funding requirements, create significant barriers for under-resourced, women-led organizations, which often lack the time, institutional capacity or networks needed to navigate complex bureaucratic processes (6).
To drive real and lasting impact, gender-transformative climate finance must no longer be treated as peripheral – it must become a core pillar of global climate strategy. This requires coordinated action across the private sector, governments, and philanthropy. The private sector must adopt a longer-term, risk-tolerant approach: investing in underserved areas like health and gender equality, supporting early-stage and community-led projects, and partnering with civil society to ensure resources reach women in low-income, climate-vulnerable regions. Governments should embed gender equity into climate finance policies by developing accessible financial tools, simplifying access to public and multilateral funds, and scaling locally led and inclusive models like microfinance, mobile banking, and savings tailored to women. Although philanthropy currently accounts for only 2% of total climate finance, with its unique ability to absorb risk and move flexibly, the philanthropic sector must step up to fund high-impact, equity-centered solutions that others overlook, particularly those led by women and rooted in frontline communities (7). Together, these sectors can prioritize investments directly supporting women-led enterprises, integrate gender indicators into financial systems, strengthen monitoring, and scale tools like concessional capital and gender-linked financing to ensure funds reach marginalized women. Only through this collective effort can we transform climate finance into a vehicle for equity, resilience, and systemic change.
A shift toward systemic, locally led solutions that improve women’s ability to make their own strategic life choices is imperative. Placing women at the forefront of climate adaptation efforts – as innovators, leaders, and decision-makers – ensures that their unique perspectives and expertise drive meaningful change. This is a matter of justice, and moreover, a necessity for effective and sustainable climate action. Only by embracing gender equality can we hope to build a resilient future for all.
That resilient future rests on the shoulders of governments, civil society, and philanthropy. We need governments to implement economic policies and programs that enable diversification and inclusive agricultural services, as well as gender-responsive climate policies that help women to enhance their resilience, productivity, and overall empowerment. We need governments and civil society to integrate locally led programmatic recommendations with and for women and girls, such as prioritizing midwives and frontline healthcare workers in emergency preparedness and climate adaptation planning, and to increase the number of these programs globally. Finally, we need philanthropies to engage in greater levels of flexible funding directed at women-led climate finance initiatives and multilateral development banks to make funding more accessible to locally led climate efforts.
To learn more about the intersections of climate change, humanitarian crises, and women’s health, watch Global Intersection: Climate Change, Humanitarian Crises, Women’s Health, and Gender Equality, a learning session hosted by Global Health Visions. The conversation features Skye Wheeler of Human Rights Watch, Zainab Jah of RH Impact, and Rafia Rauf of Safer Forum for Motherhood and White Ribbon Alliance. Together, they explore the gendered impacts of climate disasters and share strategies to strengthen health and rights in crisis-affected settings.
We are proud to introduce the GHV team members working with partners to advance gender-responsive approaches to the climate crisis. To read full bios, visit this page.
