WEDO is excited to share the latest news from the Gender Just Climate Solutions (GJCS) Scale Fund! This work addresses a question at the heart of our ongoing climate finance advocacy: How can we help ensure that locally led, “gender just climate solutions” are scaled and replicated appropriately?

As a refresher, the GJCS Scale Fund is part of a multi-pronged program of work on advancing gender just climate solutions. Launched in 2021 as part of the Generation Equality Forum—and led by WEDO and our longstanding partners WEP, WECF, and FEMNET—the fund aims both to innovate new models for resource redistribution within our movements and respond to the challenges and needs identified by those working to lead and scale feminist climate solutions.

Functioning as a collective re-grant mechanism, the Scale Fund currently serves the community of previous awardees and honorees of the Women and Gender Constituency’s annual “Gender Just Climate Solutions” program, WORTH Initiative grant recipients, and the partners in the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA). It focuses on resourcing activities that help our partners scale and replicate their ongoing programming, as well as technical assistance to address institutional capacity.

Sustaining Solutions: Highlighting Re-Grant Recipients

The Fund has now provided three rounds of re-grants to 19 organizations, as well as tailored technical support for three organizations’ resource mobilization.

Pilot Round

The first six re-grant recipients completed their scaling activities at the end of June. These organizations from Bangladesh, Cameroon, Mexico, Pakistan, Senegal, and Uganda used the funds to support activities such as the development of a strategic plan and organizational website and the creation of videos, which two organizations pursued, to tell their stories and improve their reach.

Read about the first re-grant recipients.

Members of BINDU, an initial Scale Fund recipient, which promotes women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction and resilience in Bangladesh. Photo credit: BINDU.

The Second Round

Six re-grant recipients are currently undertaking activities with support from the Scale Fund. These efforts range from developing a five-year strategic plan to technical assistance for replicating their solution throughout their community. The awarded solutions are based in Argentina, Bangladesh, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, and Turkey.

Read about these organizations’ work.

The Third Round

During COP27, a third round of awarded solutions were announced. These efforts are based in Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, Uganda, Bolivia, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica, as well as a global network of Analog Forestry organizations.

View the third round recipients.

Beyond Funding: Capacity-Strengthening

Accessible funding is more than just direct funding mechanisms: it is access to the tools and knowledge needed to tap into larger resourcing channels. Too often, these resources are made inaccessible by language, processes and requirements modeled on colonial funding practices.

While we do the work to disrupt those structures at the source, we also can build with organizations to access available funding now. As an example, a call for proposals from the German International Klimate Initiative (IKI) for its small grants initiative was an opportunity to provide technical support to three organizations that met the criteria.

Partnering with an experienced consultant, Lakshmi Venugopal, the organizations were guided through the proposal development process. To help ensure that these applications are not an extractive use of team members’ time, but rather a constructive experience leading to success with future applications, each organization was remunerated for two staff members who worked on the application alongside the consultant. One of the supported organizations, Association of Women in Agriculture Kenya (AWAK), recalls the importance of this intentional support:

Revamped GJCS Directory

Want to learn more about the more than 150 Gender Just Climate Solutions recognized and featured in the Women and Gender Constituency GJCS annual publications since 2015? The newly re-vamped GJCS Directory allows you to search solutions by country, region, and topics! Connect with a local solution to see the work happening all around us to realize our shared feminist vision for climate action.

As we prepare ourselves for the new year, we look forward to further collaborating with our partners and building out opportunities for capacity strengthening and re-granting, every step informed by previous rounds and continued conversations with these feminist solutions.