CATALI.5°T Initiative: Concerted Action to Accelerate Local I.5° Technologies – Latin America and West Africa

The report assesses gender dynamics and barriers for climate entrepreneurs and support organizations in Latin America and West Africa, specifically focusing on Mexico, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal. It identifies systemic gaps in education, agriculture, and energy, and provides recommendations for the project's Executing Entities to increase women's participation in climate innovation.

• There is a significant gender credit gap for women-led SMEs in the target regions, with Latin America's gap standing at US$ 93 billion in 2019 and Africa's estimated at US$ 42 billion in 2022.
• Women in West Africa and Latin America face structural and socio-cultural barriers, including high rates of child marriage in West Africa and femicide in Latin America, which hinder their entrepreneurial potential.
• A stark rural-urban divide exists, where rural women have significantly less access to land tenure, technical assistance, and finance compared to urban women.
• In Côte d'Ivoire, high illiteracy rates among women, particularly in rural areas (78.2%), act as a major barrier to entering the venture ecosystem and accessing management training.
• Women are under-represented in the high-value cash crop sectors of agriculture in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, while dominating subsistence food crop production.
• Female entrepreneurs in Côte d'Ivoire face specific financial discrimination, including being viewed as 'risky' by banks if they are unmarried or lack a male associate in their venture.
• In Senegal, women's participation in the tech sector is low; only 10% of West African ventures that raised US$ 1 million or more in the last decade had at least one female co-founder.
• Mexican women face a heavy unpaid care burden, spending an average of six hours per day on housework compared to two hours for men, which limits their ability to enter the labour market.
• In Mexico, land tenure asymmetry persists, with only 19.8% of community members (ejidatarios) with land titles being women as of 2015.
• Venture capital funding in Africa is heavily skewed toward men; in 2021, female-only founding teams raised only 0.7% of all funding, while male-only teams raised 81.3%.
• Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) report a 'start-up funnel' effect where the proportion of women decreases from the inspiration stage to the acceleration stage.
• The report identifies a lack of female role models and mentors in climate-specific sectors, which contributes to a confidence gap among women entrepreneurs.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2022). CATALI.5°T Initiative: Concerted Action to Accelerate Local I.5° Technologies – Latin America and West Africa. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/ga-fp198.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. CATALI.5°T Initiative: Concerted Action to Accelerate Local I.5° Technologies – Latin America and West Africa. 2022. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/ga-fp198.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=CATALI.5°T Initiative: Concerted Action to Accelerate Local I.5° Technologies – Latin America and West Africa |date=20 October 2022 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/ga-fp198.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2022catali5t, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{CATALI.5°T Initiative: Concerted Action to Accelerate Local I.5° Technologies – Latin America and West Africa}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/ga-fp198.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }