Background

Asia requires substantial adaptation finance to cope with current and future climate risks, with the Asian Development Bank estimating that the region will need an annual investment of up to USD 431 billion to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Furthermore, the impacts of climate change often disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, especially women. Evidence indicates that only 3 percent of the total global climate finance targets gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), and that GESI is, at best, weakly integrated into public finance flows, with different and often opaque approaches to defining and financing it. Capturing such initiatives in the private sector remains unachievable, as no mandatory reporting mechanisms exist to track and report on either adaptation or GESI actions by private actors. Addressing these barriers at both layers together is crucial not only for ensuring equitable access to adaptation finance but also for advancing socio-economic growth, as women are active change agents and constitute one half of the global economy.

UN Women’s issue paper points out that despite global progress in developing Green Taxonomies, societies have given less attention to socially sustainable aims, including gender equality. UNDP highlights that the private sector stands to gain from the opportunities presented by gender equality. To increase the visibility of such opportunities, the UNDP has created the “SDG Investor Map,” in which gender and marginalization lenses are incorporated as core components. There is a growing interest in gender equality in private markets as well. Assets under management (AUM) of funds operating with a gender lens in their market investments increased from USD 6 billion in 2021 to USD 7.9 billion in 2023. Multiple Gender Lens Investing (GLI) frameworks are also available, such as the 2X criteria, SEAF Gender Equality Scorecard, MEDA’s GEM framework, etc. Despite this growth, fragmentation persists in the overall landscape. This fragmentation underscores the need for interoperability and synergy across public and private frameworks. These improvements will ensure accurate capital tracking and channeling to communities that need it the most.

This webinar will focus on building a shared understanding of gender-responsive climate finance, explore the private sector’s role in mobilizing climate finance towards gender-responsive outcomes, and identify gaps and barriers that private institutions face in integrating a gender lens into climate investment decisions.

Objectives

Sustainable finance taxonomies and reporting frameworks are developing across South and Southeast Asia, creating an opportunity to incorporate GESI at the design stage. This webinar aims to facilitate a conversation on the need for evidence bases on gender-responsive climate finance to inform more streamlined and strategic decision-making around effective climate finance allocation for GESI. Specific objectives of the webinar are:

1. Explore approaches to defining and standardizing gender-responsive climate finance: Efforts required to define and standardize gender-responsive climate finance for visibility, comparability, and action.
2. Identify enabling environment conditions for moving the needle: policy and regulatory environment, information and capacity requirements for catalyzing private investment
3. Assess what makes gender-responsive adaptation finance high-quality: ensuring effective allocation of gender-responsive climate finance.
4. Examine pathways for moving the needle from standardization to effective allocation of gender-responsive climate finance: key factors for translating evidence to action

Download the Agenda