The impacts of climate change, environmental degradation and disasters are unequally felt across Asia and the Pacific region. Women and marginalized groups have less access to information, resources, finance and technologies, leaving them with greater challenges in coping and rebuilding after a crisis.

Over the last three years, the WeEmpowerAsia programme (WEA) has worked to increase the number of women who lead and participate in business in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam, during which period there has been much progress on gender equality in business in Asia.

The document was prepared by the in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the EmPower Project. It contributes to building evidence on the linkages between gender equality and climate change in order to facilitate country-driven processes and enable member states and other stakeholders in South Asia and HKH to accelerate gender-responsive climate action.

This report takes stock of the ongoing experiences related to gender-responsive renewable energy programmes as well as the consolidated wealth of knowledge and lessons learned in this field.

This report was completed in the framework of the Joint Programme of the Government of Viet Nam and the United Nations on Promoting the Integrated National Financing Frameworks to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and it was supported by the Joint SDG Fund.

Community Risk Assessment (CRA) has been conducted in five most climate vulnerable districts of Bangladesh: Kurigram, Jamalpur, Khulna, Satkhira, and Cox’s Bazar. Five disaster risk reduction action plans have been developed to address the needs and vulnerabilities of different group of people.

This issue of EmPower's biannual newsletter covers highlights from the first half of 2022 and features links to a collection of resources for our work on gender equality and climate change.

Infographics and videos on Renewable Energy: Powering Equality for a Green Recovery. Three women leaders from Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.

The Gender Marker Toolkit, under the National Resilience Program (NRP), has been designed to strengthen and develop the gender work of the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) which already has a Gender Equity Strategy and Action Plan and an active Gender Forum. The Toolkit aims to raise awareness, understanding, and skills in ensuring gender responsiveness throughout all project stages and for all asset types that the Bangladesh Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) works on. It also aims to strengthen LGED’s influencer role with other Ministries and Departments.

In the coming years, it is likely that hazards will only further increase in frequency and intensity due to climate variability and temperature spikes, exacerbating the primary risk drivers leading to gender inequality and poverty.

The report provides a scenario-based assessment of the collective NDC commitments of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as their individual commitments to action including net zero goals, carbon pricing commitments and removal of fossil-fuel subsidies. It also explores the steps countries in the region have been taking to build up capacity to enable more action, such as climate finance budgeting, and monitoring and reporting.

The report aims to strengthen country-driven processes by presenting more evidence of the links between gender equality and climate change in the priority sectors of forestry, agriculture, energy, and water. It was prepared by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and UN Women to provide country-specific recommendations on enhancing gender responsive policy implementation and actions to further augment the integration of gender equality in climate relevant policy areas.

The study on the Operational Modality of Various Funds within Federal Governance assesses the status of 12 funds with mandates to respond to GBV and advance GE in Nepal. Funds related to GBV and GE are a central component of the GoN’s effort to advance women’s human rights and equality under law. The study reveals a serious gap between the rights and entitlements that are formally guaranteed to women under law in Nepal, and their ability to experience benefits from these funds.

Cambodia is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of weather variability and climate change and will be more so by the end of this century. Thus, the assessment report on The State of Gender Equality and Climate Change in Cambodia aims to analyse the gendered impacts of climate change and raise awareness about the benefits of, and need for gender-responsive climate action in the country.

This GRB Timeline showing the sequence of TL Government’s effort with the line ministries, CSOs, private sectors, development partners and academia in pushing forward the country’s commitment to achieve gender equality through assuring gender sensitive budget at workplace.

The report aims to provide a better understanding for policymakers in Asia about what focusing on human rights and gender equality in the context of climate change entails in practice.

The purpose of this guide is to introduce and improve the integration of gender issues in renewable energy policies, plans and strategies by providing practical ways to step up commitments in renewable energy policy in an inclusive and gender responsive way.

The purpose of this report is to provide further evidence of the interlinkages between gender, the economy and climate change, in order to demonstrate the need to develop a unified methodological framework that allows gender, economy and climate change interlinkages to be brought together for the purposes of analysis, advocacy and policy-making.

The EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies project, jointly implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Women and kindly supported by the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency, puts gender equality at the heart of climate action.

Key Messages and commitments on Climate change and disaster displacement COP 25 – Madrid, Spain