Cooling Facility Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Sri Lanka

The Cooling Facility aims to integrate gender equality into sustainable cooling investments across Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, and Sri Lanka. The report identifies systemic gender gaps in labor force participation, financial access, and STEM education, while noting that women are disproportionately affected by limited access to cooling. It proposes a strategic approach involving sex-disaggregated data collection, targeted financial products for female entrepreneurs, and capacity building to increase women's roles as employees and consumers in the cooling sector.

• The Cooling Facility targets the transformation of the cooling sector to increase energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions, focusing on strengthening women's roles as "employees, entrepreneurs and consumer in energy and cooling-related sectors".
• Financial inclusion gaps hinder the adoption of energy-efficient technologies. In Panama, the share of women aged 15 or above with a financial or mobile money account is 42%, which is "well below the average in developing countries (58.3%), or Latin America and the Caribbean (52%)".
• In Kenya, female-headed households experience higher rates of energy deprivation than male-headed households; 50.4% of rural female-headed households "do not have any source of electricity" compared to 45.3% of male-headed households.
• Agricultural productivity is negatively impacted by gender gaps in Malawi, where productivity on female-managed plots is estimated to be "25% lower than on male-managed plots" due to limited access to productive endowments.
• In North Macedonia, there is a stark vocational gap in engineering; only 1% of female students choose mechanical engineering and 5% choose electrical engineering, compared to 16% and 20% of male students respectively.
• Somalia presents extreme gender inequality, ranking fourth highest globally in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index. Women face severe constraints in accessing maternal health services, often requiring the "consent of a male family member or clan leader" for emergency procedures like C-sections.
• In Sri Lanka, while progress has been made in health and education, women's labor force participation remains low at 35.7%, and they are "paid less than men", a gap not explained by productive capacity.
• The Facility's strategic approach includes using the World Bank's "Gender Tag" mechanism to ensure projects explicitly address gender dimensions through analysis, specific actions, and indicators.
• Proposed interventions to close gender gaps include designing financial products like "micro-consignment, revolving loan funds, and flexible repayment plans" to meet the needs of female consumers and enterprises.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2021). Cooling Facility Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Sri Lanka. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp177-gender-assessment.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. Cooling Facility Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Sri Lanka. 2021. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp177-gender-assessment.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=Cooling Facility Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Sri Lanka |date=14 September 2021 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp177-gender-assessment.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2021cooling, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{Cooling Facility Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Sri Lanka}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp177-gender-assessment.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }