We cannot address what we cannot see. And when women's knowledge, contributions and experiences remain invisible in environmental data, they risk remaining invisible in the policies and decisions that shape our collective future.

At CBD COP17, discussions on gender-responsive biodiversity data highlighted a persistent challenge: while more countries are collecting gender-disaggregated data, official information connecting gender and biodiversity remains fragmented, insufficient or unavailable.

But this is not simply a technical problem. It is also about power, participation and whose knowledge counts.

When women are excluded from data processes, the resulting evidence often fails to reflect their realities. That absence, in turn, makes it harder to demonstrate the importance of their participation in environmental decision-making.

Moving Beyond Counting Women

The Gender-responsive Biodiversity Data: A Practical Handbook, launched at COP17 and developed through a global peer-to-peer learning process, demonstrates how women's organizations, Indigenous Peoples' organizations and community groups can generate rigorous, actionable evidence.

It challenges us to move beyond simply counting women and instead ask: Who determines what information is collected? Whose knowledge is recognized? Who interprets the findings, and who decides how they are used?

Experiences shared from Guatemala and other community-led monitoring initiatives reinforce that when grassroots women shape their own monitoring processes, they produce richer evidence grounded in local realities. This knowledge can inform national policy and monitoring when meaningful channels for participation exist.

Women's organizations must be recognized not merely as sources of information, but as producers of knowledge and strategic partners in implementation and accountability.

Connecting Gender Data Across the Rio Conventions

Biodiversity loss, climate change and land degradation are interconnected crises. Yet the data systems and policy processes designed to address them often remain fragmented.

The CBD Gender Plan of Action (2023–2030), supporting Target 23 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Belém Gender Action Plan, adopted at UNFCCC COP30, create an important opportunity for greater coherence. Both frameworks call for stronger gender-responsive data and national implementation. The Belém GAP also includes a mandate for cooperation across the Rio Conventions.

At the national level, biodiversity, climate and land commitments often involve the same ministries, institutions and communities. Harmonizing approaches, indicators and data standards could reduce reporting burdens while providing a fuller picture of women's contributions, rights, knowledge and leadership.

The Gender and Environment Data Alliance (GEDA), with more than 100 institutional members, works to strengthen precisely these connections, advancing the availability and use of gender-environment data to inform more just and effective environmental action.

Three Priorities for Action

As countries move from commitments to implementation, three priorities are essential:

1. Close the evidence gap at its source. Integrate gender-responsive data, indicators and statistics into national planning, monitoring and reporting across all three Rio Conventions. Investments in one process should reinforce progress across the others.

2. Recognize and resource women's organizations as knowledge producers. Support community-led monitoring, locally defined priorities and women's agency over how evidence is collected, interpreted and used. Women's organizations must be partners in policy design and accountability, not simply consultees.

3. Treat gender-environment data as essential infrastructure. Dedicated, predictable financing is needed across the full data cycle, including direct support for women's organizations and local actors generating critical evidence.

As the first Global Review of Collective Progress under the biodiversity framework advances, and national implementation of the Belém GAP begins, there is an opportunity to build more coherent, inclusive and accountable environmental data systems.

Ultimately, gender-responsive data is not only about what we measure. It is about whose knowledge matters, whose leadership counts and whose priorities shape our collective future.