Need and Opportunity in Deepening Gender-Smart Climate Finance

The significant response to the first round of funding under USAID’s Climate Gender Equity Fund (CGEF) underscores that there is both “massive need and huge opportunity” for deepening investment in gender-smart climate finance.

Sukvhir Basran, chairperson of gender finance industry organisation, 2X Global made this point on Thursday, November 16 during a high-level panel convened by the White House to launch the U.S. Government’s Women In the Sustainable Economy (WISE) initiative. The WISE launch took place during the Asia-Pacific Economy Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, California.

2X Global is managing CGEF, the public-private climate and gender finance fund which counts Amazon, Visa Foundation and Reckitt as its founding partners.

Basran highlighted that they had received over 370 applications for CGEF, which she explained “aims to increase access to finance for the investment vehicles and businesses and community-based organisations which are developing and scaling women-led and women-benefiting climate solutions.”

She expanded on the need for a resource such as CGEF, noting that climate finance needed a gender lens if it is to truly achieve impact.

“All climate issues have a social impact – even more so when it comes to women. We know that climate change disproportionately affects women and girls in a range of ways – displacement, migration, keeping millions of children out of school. [It impacts] the informal economy and the care economy. The other aspect of this is that this is a huge missed opportunity – if we look at creating a sustainable future and we’re creating the infrastructure for that… if we don’t implement a gender lens now, we’re not going to be able to achieve the impact going forward,” said Basran.