Webinar: Strategies For Organizing To Influence, Monitor And Track Climate Finance

The fifth session of our five part series on women's rights and climate finance, Experiences and Perspectives of Women Engaging in Climate Finance, shared the insights of three activists who have been serving as GCF Monitors as part of the "Women Demand 'Gender-Just' Climate Finance" initiative. They spoke about their processes of learning about climate finance and connecting with others to monitor climate finance in their communities and regions, discussed the value they have found in this work, and answered questions from webinar participants.

The fourth webinar of a five part series on women's rights and climate finance: Strategies for Organizing to Influence, Monitor, and Track Climate Finance (from Global to Local), focused on strategies to engage with various actors to both facilitate and advocate for the meaningful inclusion of the perspectives and experiences of women's groups, affected communities, and other civil society stakeholders in the design and implementation of projects and programs.

The second session of our five part series on women's rights and climate finance, Gender Mainstreaming in Climate Finance Mechanisms, provided an overview of how gender equality has been mainstreamed into global climate finance mechanisms, including a deep dive on gender considerations under the Green Climate Fund by Liane Schalatek of the Heinrich Boell Foundation - North America.

This Introduction to Climate Finance is the first of a five part series on women's rights and climate finance, aiming to build knowledge and power to ensure finance flows are benefiting local women's groups, responding to community needs and respecting human rights. This session will outline the climate finance landscape, as well as the key challenges and opportunities we hope to explore in this webinar series.

The third session of our five part series on women's rights and climate finance, Getting the Money to the People: GCF Accreditation and Enhanced Direct Action, focused on accessing the Green Climate Fund through working with stakeholders at the country level (engaging with the National Designated Authority), utilizing Enhanced Direct Access, and seeking accreditation.

Last Friday, 29 May, it was announced that both the Fair, Green and Global Alliance (FGG) and the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) have been selected as two of the 20 potential strategic partnerships of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the 2021-2025 period. Both ENDS is pleased that the Dutch government is seriously considering extending its support to these networks, as they show that cooperation on the basis of equality between grassroots organisations and NGOs throughout the world can continue to bring about change in the position of women, in respect for human rights and in making trade chains and financing systems sustainable.

The vast majority of climate finance is channelled to (and through) big institutions and large-scale projects, often without taking into account the wishes and interests of local communities. Both ENDS is working with diverse partners worldwide to address this problem, with a special focus on the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

We are very proud that our director Daniëlle Hirsch has been included again in the ‘Sustainable 100’ (an annual ranking list published by Dutch newspaper Trouw), and has gone up more than 40 spots compared to last year! Danielle was included in the list because of the many things she does with her organisation as a whole, but she got the higher ranking for the way she combines her criticism of the destructive role of the Netherlands as a trading nation and large cause  of CO2 emissions in the world (often supported by the Dutch government), with a  constructive attitude when it comes to finding alternatives and solutions.

"How many layers of clothing are you wearing? One? No, that's not enough. You should wear your ski pants over your jeans, and change your shoes for snowboots." And there you are, on day 1 of your trip to Mongolia. I had already heard that Mongolia is very cold at the end of November, and with -22 degrees that seemed to be all true.

After a complaint filed by women's groups from Ixquisis, Guatemala, the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) has started an investigation on several policy violations, amongst which the Gender Equality policy. This is a unique chance to create a precedent, because complaints on the IDB's gender policy are very rare. The women from Ixquisis are fighting for their rights with support of the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA).

During the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) of the UNFCCC taking place in Katowice, Both ENDS partner Raju Pandit Chettri – director of Prakriti Resources Centre in Nepal - was one of the selected Southern leaders to meet with the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Sigrid Kaag. We asked Raju about his expectations, messages, Kaag's responses and his experiences of the meeting.

This paper by Prakriti  Resources Center (Nepal) sheds light on the gender and climate change nexus, gender mainstreaming as a tool to address gender inequality, gender and climate change policy landscape both at international and national level, gaps and way forward.