Climate change disproportionately impacts women. Climate impacts are pushing women into poverty, creating health complications for women, and devastating the economic health of their businesses and communities. With nearly one billion women excluded from formal financial services, and 753 million women in the most climate-vulnerable regions lacking adequate financial services, the need for climate-responsive financial solutions is urgent.
Our latest policy diagnostic explores how policy solutions can empower climate-vulnerable communities through women’s economic empowerment. It highlights what countries worldwide are doing to tackle climate change through a gender lens, offering innovative policies, real-world case studies, and actionable recommendations to bridge the gap between climate, gender, and financial inclusion.
Based on our research and engagement with policymakers, Women’s World Banking recommends these steps to enhance policies at the intersection of gender, climate, and financial inclusion:
- Innovate: Create or adapt existing policies to focus on the intersection of climate, finance and gender simultaneously.
- Partner: Involve key stakeholders from across the government ecosystem to collaborate on policies that effectively integrate financial inclusion, climate realities and gender.
- Incentivize: Create reasons for financial services providers to adopt gender-transformative financial products with a climate angle.
- Focus: Invest in women consumers’ financial capabilities, particularly related to insurance and savings habits.
- Benchmark: Include gender-disaggregated targets and data collection related to climate strategies in policies.
Download the full diagnostic to learn more about empowering policymakers to create lasting change for women in the fight against climate change.
