WEDO and Both ENDS, as a member of the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), were proud to sponsor women activists—for the third time this year—to the third Board meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in 2018. By ensuring advocates for women’s rights are able to closely follow the GCF and develop deeper expertise and understanding of this significant fund and both its opportunities for meaningful climate action and risks of sponsoring action that not in the best interests of the communities it should serve, WEDO continues to build support for gender-responsive climate finance to become the norm rather than an ideal.

The 21st meeting of the GCF Board was held in Bahrain in October, and along with approving over $1 billion USD in projects, the GCF Board formally began the first replenish process since the GCF’s initial resource mobilization, where $10.3 billion USD was pledged. To learn more about the Board meeting, see the analysis by Liane Schalatek of Heinrich Boell Stiftung North America.

Liane, as a friend of WEDO and Civil Society Organizations’ Active Observer from the North to the GCF, was a key speaker for the second session of our Women’s Rights and Climate Finance webinar session, digging into how the GCF operates with regard to gender; our latest session featured two of the four women advocates sponsored to the meeting. This session focused on how these women, the GCF regional monitors, are building regional networks of people and organizations interested in climate finance in order to influence, monitor, and track the flows of funds. These regional groups have deepened their engagement, with the African regional group now featuring Angophone and Francophone hubs, each represented by a monitor who attended the Board meeting.

The four women who brought their ideas and energy to the Board meeting—as well as the preparatory meetings where civil society coordinates its responses and decides through collaboration and consensus how the Global North and South observers will articulate the civil society positions—were Ms. Maria Julia Tramutola of the Foundation for Environment and Natural Resources (FARN) (Argentina), Ms. Wanun Permpibul of Climate Watch Thailand, Zénabou Segda of the Women Environmental Program (Burkina Faso), and Titi Akosa of the Centre for 21st Century Issues (Nigeria).

The sponsoring of women to attend the GCF Board meeting and the Women’s Rights and Climate Finance webinar series are part of the “Women Demand ‘Gender-Just’ Climate Finance” project sponsored by Wallace Global Fund.