A systemic and structural transformation of our global economic systems finance flows is urgently required to radically transform our approach to economic growth, our systems of production and consumption, and the rules that govern our macroeconomic and multilateral systems.
Within this vision, “feminist climate finance” encompasses the multifaceted ways that climate finance will ultimately need to be transformed to align with our feminist values and fund feminist solutions. It is concerned with both how much money is flowing from the Global North to the Global South, as well as the quality and distribution of this finance.
Climate finance delivered within our current global architecture—one based on debt and austerity—will not allow us to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Despite the obligation to provide climate finance and the context of an escalating debt crisis in the Global South, much of climate finance is delivered as loans. Thus, climate finance pledges must go hand in hand with structural change, aligning finance flows with demands for feminist economic justice that move from a system centered on extraction and unlimited growth to one centered on care and social protection.
The Five Dimensions of Climate Finance
WEDO developed a framework that outlines five dimensions necessary to understand and implement feminist climate finance. These dimensions contribute to the analysis of existing efforts to achieve gender equality and address the root causes of climate change and climate impacts, as well as to operationalize measures to work toward a feminist climate finance system.
1. Ambitious, Adequate and Appropriate Finance
Feminist climate finance cannot be achieved without considering all climate finance. It must promote overall climate finance flows that are:
- Ambitious in comparison to current finance,
- Adequate to the scale and depth of the gender-differentiated climate needs, and
- Appropriate to deliver transformative climate action within an appreciation of global and national mechanisms and systems and their limitations.
2. Accessible Finance
Feminist climate finance must be accessible by and delivered directly to grassroots groups, community-led organizations and Indigenous Peoples working at the intersection of gender and climate justice.
Echoing the “nothing about us, without us” truism, direct access recognizes and values the work already happening globally at the community level that is under-resourced and undercapacitated.
3. Gender-Transformative Finance
Feminist climate finance effectively and sustainably addresses the root causes of climate change, and engages with the exacerbation of gender inequality by gender-blind climate projects.
By supporting transformative approaches that promote and advance gender equality
within a human rights framework, the selection and implementation of climate finance projects can materially and sustainably advance gender equality in alignment with international commitments.
4. Accountable Finance
Feminist climate finance enables stakeholders and particularly rightsholders to follow the funding, understand to what and to whom it is flowing, and engage in the processes that surround the funding.
Advancing gender equality and addressing the climate crisis cannot be achieved without processes that are not only transparent but also accountable to those who should be benefiting from climate finance.
5. Finance that Changes the System
Feminist climate finance must recognize and challenge the inherently unfeminist structures of the current global financial architecture, in line with the recognition that transformation is necessary to deliver climate and economic justice for people and planet.
Without addressing the root causes of the climate crisis—extractive capitalism, imperialism and neo-colonialism, militarism, and the patriarchy—solutions cannot be true solutions.
Download the overview brief on Feminist Climate Finance for key actions for each dimension
View the Climate Finance issue page to learn more about WEDO’s work
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