Women and girls need to be better represented in all aspects of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy and programme processes, from the leadership and decision-making spaces, data collection and analysis, to policy formulation, programme design, and all the way through to implementation on the ground, as well as the monitoring and evaluating of these efforts.

Keya Khan is Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of Bangladesh. She was interviewed in her office in Dhaka by Shararat Islam of UN Women. This year’s International Women’s Day theme is, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. How can we ensure gender equality and empowerment of women in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies, and programmes?

The climate and resource crises, as well as global inequality, have not disappeared during COVID-19. If anything, the pandemic has underscored the critical need to address gender inequality if we want to successfully combat the global pandemic and the climate crisis. It has also demonstrated the leadership roles that women and girls are playing in health and disaster response, especially at the local level.

Devishi Jha, is an 18-year-old climate activist who was born in India and now lives in the United States. She is the Director of Partnerships at Zero Hour, an international youth-led climate justice organization, and serves on the National Council at UNICEF USA.

Winifrida Elizabeth Nawaratne is a human rights activist and an active member of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka. She became engaged in social work following a course on human rights at the University of Colombo, which she took after retiring from her job as a typist. She was a participant in UN Women’s multistakeholder dialogues titled “Promoting Women’s Engagement in Effective Solid Waste Management in Sri Lanka”. Winifrida dedicates her time to promoting women’s rights and women’s empowerment in her community in Puttalam, north-western Sri Lanka.

Statement by Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka for World Environment Day, 5 June 2021

Women who are “most disadvantaged” need “equal participation in all relevant planning and decision-making processes,” with regards to multi-stakeholder engagement for climate action, said Saad Alfarargi, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development. This includes in particular “women with disabilities, girls and young women, minority women, indigenous women, and members of other disempowered and marginalized groups,” he said.

For the hundreds of families in the coastal communities of Barangay Tanza 2, the always-ready area Administrator, Irma Bantique Glomar, is the one to seek out if something needs fixing. “If something goes wrong, always ask Admin,” they like to say. And with a little help from UN Women, “Admin” has been instrumental in fixing the dilapidated wooden-plank walkways that traverse the community, connecting households and connecting the community to the main road outside.

On the road winding into Chreng village in Cambodia’s Pursat province, a group of boys are playing volleyball on an arid plot of land as villagers watch and cheer. Around the corner, 24-year-old Lang Sokang is knee-deep in mulch, unearthing weeds and planting herbs in her garden. Her younger sisters are perched precariously on a wooden platform that serves as a makeshift greenhouse. The girls are carefully transplanting the saplings into little organic cups. In two weeks, the saplings will be ready to be planted in the ground. The sisters tend to the garden after returning from the rice fields in the morning. While they work steadily, a group of men from the village are drinking nearby in merry revelry.

The Green Economy, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, aims to improve human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities; it is low-carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive. Green economies have become the subject of serious discussion by governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations alike. Green economies encompass economic, social and environmental concerns in accordance with sustainable development principles.

Every morning at 10 a.m., Sok Sopheap sets off to run errands and pick up her two grandchildren from school in Tropang Thom village, southern Cambodia. Sopheap is in her 50’s – a stage in life when many women in her country might slow down – but like many local women, she is bearing an increasingly heavy burden as a result of climate change. Like other villages in Takeo province, Tropang Thom has been in the grip of an oscillating water crisis.

When Tranh Thi Gam first started her biogas digester business, she raised many eyebrows. In the little district of Ung Hoa, located south of Viet Nam’s capital, Hanoi, villagers were not accustomed to seeing a woman take the reins of a business. But eight years later, Tranh Gim has achieved not only financial success, but has played a role in a larger fight in Viet Nam against the devastating impacts of climate change.

Suhela Khan currently leads UN Women’s joint programme with UNEP, called "Women’s Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Energy Programme" in India. Launched at COP 21 in six countries, the Programme works on identifying and removing structural gender-specific barriers that female energy entrepreneurs face, enhancing women’s productive use of sustainable energy, and increasing women’s participation and leadership in...

UN Women is proud to be supporting Ms Zakia Naznin to travel to Lima, Peru next month to participant in the UNFCCC discussions and be a panelist at a UN Women co-hosted event on Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience and Human Mobility: Voices from the Frontline. UN Women is co-organizing this side event on Thursday 11 December 2014 at 13:15-14:45 in partnership with UNHCR, UNUEHS and IOM. This side event will put a human face to climate change...