Gender and Climate Change

EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies

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. They also remain underrepresented in climate change, energy transition and disaster risk reduction (DRR) related decision-making.

Women can be powerful actors in accelerating change. But this requires collective, rapid efforts by governments, development partners, private sector, financing institutes, civil society groups and local communities. Without their participation, representation and leadership, the solutions and response to the climate emergency will continue to exclude their needs and undermine their rights.

Jointly implemented by UN Women and the UN Environment Programme, with support from the Governments of Germany, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland, the EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies (EmPower) programme aims to strengthen gender equality and human rights in climate change and disaster risk actions in the Asia and the Pacific region.

The EmPower programme works on three outcomes: 

Through the first phase of the programme (2018-2022), UN Women, UNEP and partners have successfully engineered alternative livelihoods for vulnerable communities, reduced emissions through renewable energy and sparked intergovernmental commitments to ensure gender-responsive policies and actions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the next five years, UN Women and UNEP will scale up the lessons learned and the approaches developed by implementing the second phase of the EmPower programme (2023-2027).