Advancing gender equality and climate action

This practical guide by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) provides a framework for integrating gender-responsive approaches into climate change adaptation and mitigation projects. It emphasizes that gender-blind approaches risk exacerbating inequalities and undermining climate resilience, while intentional gender-responsive designs lead to more sustainable and effective outcomes. The guide outlines a project cycle involving the understanding of people's needs, assessing solutions, and implementing a Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) system with sex-disaggregated indicators.

• Gender inequalities increase vulnerability to climate change because women often have less access to essential development services such as healthcare, education, and modern technology, which are critical for resilience.
• Gender-blind climate interventions, which treat male needs as the norm, risk deepening existing inequalities and can undermine overall climate resilience and mitigation goals.
• Intentional gender-responsive approaches that involve women in decision-making and active delivery are more effective and sustainable than business-as-usual approaches.
• The guide proposes a three-step process for understanding people's needs: forming a representative stakeholder committee, gathering gender-disaggregated data on climate impacts, and identifying differing development priorities between women and men.
• Effective gender-responsive planning can utilize 'problem tree' analysis to map the root, secondary, and immediate causes of climate-related problems, allowing for interventions that address structural gender inequalities.
• Gender-responsive budgeting is essential to translate gender objectives into financial commitments, ensuring resources are allocated to address women's specific needs and remove structural barriers to participation.
• A robust Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) system for climate projects must use SMART (Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) and SPICED (Subjective, Participatory, Interpreted and Communicable, Cross-checked and compared, Empowering, and Diverse and disaggregated) indicators.
• In Cambodia, the CHAIN programme demonstrated that using plastic mulching and drip irrigation helped women increase income, save labour, and improve resilience to droughts.
• The EnDev III project in Tanzania found that profiling successful female role models through video and facilitating intra-household conversations between spouses were key to motivating women entrepreneurs in the clean cook stove sector.
• The PROSPER project in Malawi highlighted the importance of intersectional data, finding that female-headed, elder-headed, and households with members with disabilities were more likely to be in the lowest socioeconomic category ('hanging in').
• The ENGINE project in Nigeria utilized an 'all-of-community' approach, engaging boys, parents, and community gatekeepers to shift norms and support adolescent girls' transition to sustainable employment in climate-vulnerable regions.
• The ACCRE project in Ecuador showed that women were more active in conserving water sources in the páramos ecosystem, and that involving young people as agents of change helped make the process more sustainable.

APA

DUPAR, M., & VELASCO, P. (2021). Advancing gender equality and climate action. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Advancing-Gender-Equality-and-Climate-Action-WEB-2-November-2021.pdf

Chicago

DUPAR, MAIRI, and PATRICIA VELASCO. Advancing gender equality and climate action. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2021. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Advancing-Gender-Equality-and-Climate-Action-WEB-2-November-2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=DUPAR |first1=MAIRI |last2=VELASCO |first2=PATRICIA |title=Advancing gender equality and climate action |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=2021 |url=https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Advancing-Gender-Equality-and-Climate-Action-WEB-2-November-2021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dupar2021advancing, author = {DUPAR, MAIRI and VELASCO, PATRICIA}, title = {{Advancing gender equality and climate action}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2021}, url = {https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Advancing-Gender-Equality-and-Climate-Action-WEB-2-November-2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }