Every March, Women’s History Month ushers in a flurry of discussions on gender issues, including the stark reality of dwindling funding for women and gender-diverse communities. While data and reports highlight the widening funding gap, there is insufficient coordination and awareness of existing financing mechanisms to channel this urgency into action, at scale. The Roots Rising Campaign for Gender-Just Climate Finance provides just that.

We know that less than one percent of all philanthropic funding focuses explicitly on gender and the environment, a shockingly small amount considering the critical role women play in defending territories from environmental degradation, maintaining biodiversity, and mitigating climate change. The climate crisis is not gender neutral; it grows out of a patriarchal system deeply entangled with sexism, racism, ableism, white supremacy, and extractive capitalism. Feminist solutions to the climate crisis exist worldwide and have the potential to transform the very systems of oppression that created the crisis in the first place. However, these solutions are often underrecognized, undervalued, and underfunded.

Gender-just climate finance, which is the strategic allocation of resources prioritizing women and minoritized communities in leading climate change solutions that center rights and justice alongside environmental integrity, is urgently needed.

Intersectional Feminist Climate Action

Gender justice for climate action isn’t just a slogan; it’s the key to unlocking a more sustainable future for all. Feminist solutions hold immense potential. Indigenous women, women environmental defenders, members of the LBTQIA+ community, and young feminist climate activists are leading holistic movements to confront the climate crisis. Indigenous women, for instance, possess ancestral knowledge of sustainable land management practices crucial for climate adaptation. Grassroots women-led organizations are pioneering community-based renewable energy projects, building resilience, and uplifting local actions.

‘Gender-just climate action isn’t solely about rectifying injustices done to women, though this is crucial, it is also an essential means to harness the innovation, skills, and abilities of half the population to create solutions that benefit all of humanity.’

These leaders have shown us that they are not merely victims of the climate crisis but are the architects of a better future. Coordinadora de Asociaciones y Comunidades para el Desarrollo Integral de la Región Ch’orti’ (COMUNDICH), a woman-led organization in Guatemala, successfully challenged illegal land titles that were granted to the mining industry on their territory and reclaimed Maya Ch’orti’ ancestral lands through the courts.

They have since become a convener of the Mesa de Tierra’s Comunales, which provides legal support and strategy for other Guatemalan Indigenous communities to recover more than 250,000 hectares of ancestral lands. Indigenous Peoples manage a quarter of the Earth’s surface, but preserve 80 per cent of the remaining biodiversity. They are the some of the best stewards of our environment.

Successful strategies for advancing gender and climate justice require intersectional approaches. Joy Munthali from the Green Girls Platform in Malawi notes how youth climate education initiatives are essential spaces for young girls to learn about sexual and reproductive rights. Teaching young girls to feel power over their bodies also fosters their feeling of power to confront climate change by organizing their communities, raising awareness about degradative farming practices, and participating in collective actions to strengthen community food security.

‘Despite their essential role and the immense risks they face, WEDs receive only a sliver of environmental philanthropic funding, with a mere 0.05 percent allocated to support WEDs who face violence due to their activism.’

Grassroots environmental and climate justice initiatives like Green Girls Platform implicitly address gender and environmental justice because they are attending to young women’s lived experiences and current realities embedded in their context. Building resilient ecological ecosystems requires community participation and methods for governing and managing natural resources.

Women’s leadership not only leverages talent for stronger, more resilient communities and organizations, but also contributes to more comprehensive solutions. Gender-just climate action isn’t solely about rectifying injustices done to women, though this is crucial, it is also an essential means to harness the innovation, skills, and abilities of half the population to create solutions that benefit all of humanity.

Intersectional approaches not only respond to the connected axes of oppressions, but also honor the deep interconnection of life. Peasant farmers and Indigenous women, for instance, do not separate their territories (land) and their physical bodies. They have highlighted how environmental degradation and climate change are lived as personal affronts, revealing how stewardship of land and food is deeply entangled in socio-cultural and political systems, and thus should not be funded in siloed ways.

Overburdened and Underfunded

Climate change disproportionately impacts women and gender-diverse individuals due to socially constructed, unequal gender roles often resulting in lack of equal access to the resources, rights, and decision-making power. Approximately 80 percent of people displaced by climate change are women, and women are more likely to be killed by natural disasters or at younger ages than men. This disparity is exacerbated as the magnitude of the disaster increases.

The effects of climate change are particularly acute for marginalized groups, including Indigenous and Afro-descendent women, older women, LGBTIQ+ people, women with disabilities, migrant women, and those in rural, remote, conflict and disaster-prone areas. These staggering figures underscore the gendered reality of this global crisis. Gender inequality coupled with the climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Women environmental defenders (WEDs) are often at the forefront of protecting biodiversity, ensuring food security and sovereignty, and advancing the rights of local communities against environmental injustices caused by extractivism. Yet, we know that gender-based violence also sharply escalates wherever extractive industries appear – a testament to the systemic violence that these industries perpetuate. A report by the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), Global Greengrants Fund, and SAGE Fund exposes how natural resource extraction fuels and reinforces structural violence, particularly impacting women and girls. The environmental challenges stem from the same extractive systems of oppression that foster poverty, inequality, and violence; colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

‘Without guidance from feminist principles, the hard-won just transition to renewable and regenerative modes of energy creation will perpetuate the same systems of oppression and exploitation that harm both people and the planet.’

The essential contributions and leadership of women and gender-diverse peoples are not mirrored in the allocation of global climate funding. Despite their essential role and the immense risks they face, WEDs receive only a sliver of environmental philanthropic funding, with a mere 0.05 percent allocated to support WEDs who face violence due to their activism.  Shockingly, a meager 0.37 percent of human rights funding is allocated to the environmental and resource rights of Black women, girls, and trans people; and the less than one percent of all philanthropic funding globally for gender and the environment all stand in stark contrast to the essential work they carry out.

This lack of funding is a significant barrier to gender-just climate action, which ensures a healthy and equitable world for all. It curtails the ability of feminist climate leaders and movements to be dynamic, resilient, and sustainable. This stark reality demands more than sporadic attention; it demands sustained gender-just investment in climate action, collective mobilization, and strategic partnership.

Roots Rising: The need for a gender-just transition

Gender-just climate action confronts historical and structural inequalities, tackling the root causes of the climate crisis. This involves recognizing the feminist economy as a key component for a gender-just transition.

A gender-just transition seeks an equitable shift away from a fossil fuel economy^[1]. Advocating for a gender-just transition is founded on structural transformation and deeply rooted in feminist praxis. Without guidance from feminist principles, the hard-won just transition to renewable and regenerative modes of energy creation will perpetuate the same systems of oppression and exploitation that harm both people and the planet. Such a transition emphasizes the dismantling of oppressive systems and ensures that no one, particularly minoritized groups, bears an unfair burden.

Gender-just climate actions are locally led or locally driven solutions that promote equitable access to benefits and rights-based participation in decision-making. They aim to alleviate women’s disproportionate workload without adding uncompensated labor. These solutions provide multiple benefits for individuals and communities, including enhanced food security, improved health, and more sustainable livelihoods. They have the capacity for replication or scaling in other communities and demonstrate linkages to cross-cutting issues such as food sovereignty, enhanced biodiversity, and/or bodily and community health. This translates to more effective adaptation strategies, increased resilience, and a shift towards a sustainable future.

For example, the Association of Women in Agriculture Kenya (AWAK) is an organization that promotes sustainable agroforestry and land restoration, and advocates for gender-just agricultural policies. They have trained 700 urban women in slums to convert dumping sites into vegetable gardens, using organic compost and biomass waste to enrich the soil. The project provides women with sustainable sources of livelihood, and builds a holistic recovery program for women experiencing gender-based violence and impacts from the climate crisis.

Roots Rising Campaign: Feminist Funding that Closes the Gap

Roots Rising: Growing Grassroots Gender-Just Climate Action is a campaign developed as a direct response to the brilliance of grassroots feminist climate action, the significant lack of funding, and the increasing need to transform numerous bilateral pledges and commitments into significant climate action. Led by the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), Global Greengrants Fund (GGF), and Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), Roots Rising aims to mobilize at least $100 million of new funding for gender-just climate action by 2026, and significantly more by 2030.

The campaign underscores three pivotal aims: first, the necessity of climate finance reaching the local level; second, the importance of climate finance supporting gender-just climate initiatives, specifically led by women, girls, and gender-diverse people, particularly those from Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural backgrounds, and third, the inclusion of women, girls, and gender-diverse people in climate finance decision-making.

Roots Rising goes beyond mere numbers; it nurtures trust, collaboration, and transformation. The campaign, a partnership of institutions with decades of experience funding grassroots gender-just climate work, includes grassroots collectives, regional networks, women’s funds, socio-environmental justice funds, and NGOs. These partners form an archipelago-like structure to promote gender-just climate action at local, national, and international levels within an interconnected, decentralized structure. These feminist actors provide resources and support to grassroots collectives, movements, organizations, and networks designing, leading, and implementing gender-just climate action.

Roots Rising provides a first-of-its-kind participatory platform to attract and absorb higher quantities of funding from governments and philanthropy that otherwise do not reach the grassroots. By leveraging existing and established entities, the campaign will ensure that funding flows directly to feminist grassroots movements, eliminating unnecessary hurdles and guaranteeing alignment with gender-just principles. Importantly, Roots Rising isn’t reinventing the wheel; it bridges the gap between existing climate finance and women’s rights funding streams, strategically channeling resources towards the communities that need them most and who hold the most transformative potential for leading us towards a healthier people and planet.

‘Roots Rising isn’t reinventing the wheel; it bridges the gap between existing climate finance and women’s rights funding streams, strategically channeling resources towards the communities that need them most and who hold the most transformative potential for leading us towards a healthier people and planet.’

Years of partnerships financing women-led environmental work have laid the groundwork for Roots Rising. Precedents like the GAGGA, GGF, and WEDO partnership and the Funder Learning Action Co-Laboratory for Gender, Environmental, and Climate Justice (FLAC) have paved the way, demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of gender-just climate financing. These collective efforts offer a powerful springboard, highlighting the vast potential to close the funding gap and accelerate progress towards a more just and sustainable future.

Roots Rising bridges the funding access gap, particularly for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, youth, LGBTQIA+ people and rural women, who are often excluded from decision-making and resource allocation processes. It offers a unique opportunity for philanthropy and governments to make a significant impact at scale, in alignment with feminist movement-centered principles.

Proven Solutions

Supporting and resourcing community-led feminist approaches is a proven solution to our global climate crisis. Despite the slow pace of progress, closing the gender gap in climate financing is urgent and possible. The Roots Rising campaign builds on decades of feminist community organizing and offers an opportunity to highlight the substantial work already carried out to resource gender-just climate initiatives and close the gap. This support is part of a larger vision to replicate and scale gender-just climate actions that prioritize human rights, providing feminist climate finance that ensures an equitable and healthy planet for all.

Bridget Burns is the Executive Director of Women’s Environment & Development Organization

Carla López is the Executive Director of FCAM – Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres

Laura García is the President and CEO Global Greengrants Fund

Nisha Owen is the Executive Director of Global Greengrants Fund UK

^[1] A gender-just transition prioritizes environmental sustainability and the rights and wellbeing of women, girls, trans and nonbinary people, and workers in general. The concept of a ‘just energy transition’ has evolved over nearly four decades. Originally focused on protecting workers’ rights in the transition away from fossil fuels, it has broadened into a movement for systemic change. See WEDO’s: Gender Just Transition: A Path to System Change, 2023