Experts from Women Engage for a Common Future and the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific highlighted how greater gender equity can advance the fight against climate change and which levers are central to initiating the urgently needed transformation. "We need a decisive commitment to gender-sensitive climate justice, and we need it now," said Elke Ferner, Chair of UN Women Germany.
The EmPower project is working in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam to make climate-related decisions and investments more gender- and human rights-sensitive. With the help of the project, women's leadership in climate action, civil society and governments is being strengthened.
"The EmPower project is helping to empower women to address climate change and implement climate change and disaster risk reduction measures in Asia and the Pacific," said Maria Holtsberg, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Risk Advisor UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.
Award for innovative, sustainable and global women's policy projects
For more than 20 years, UN Women Germany and the City of Bonn have jointly awarded prizes to innovative, sustainable and global women's policy projects. The prize has been initiated and is financed by the Apfelbaum Foundation. The prize money this year is 20,000 euros. Together with UN Women Germany, the City of Bonn is a member of the gender@international Bonn network for gender equality.
Mayor Katja Dörner, who is responsible for the climate protection portfolio in her role as Global Executive Committee member of the international city network for sustainability ICLEI, congratulated UN Women on the award-winning project: "Worldwide, women are more affected by the consequences of the climate crisis than men. This is not the only reason why women's solution potential must be given equal consideration on the path to resilience and climate neutrality, which we are striving to achieve for Bonn by 2035. The award is an important signal for this."
Climate catastrophe is one of the greatest challenges of our time
In the Asia-Pacific region, the climate crisis is having a particularly profound impact on food security, health and livelihoods for all. Women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups are particularly hard hit due to social inequalities. The climate crisis widens the socioeconomic gap and traps disadvantaged groups in a vicious cycle. However, women and marginalized groups are a source of solutions to climate change. Their knowledge, skills, and abilities must be harnessed for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
More information on climate and gender is available on the UN Women Germany website at: https://www.unwomen.de/informieren/klima-und-gender.html (opens in a new tab)
Information on "EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies" (English) can be found at https://www.empowerforclimate.org/en (opens in a new tab)
Background UN Women
UN Women National Committee Germany is a non-profit association and one of twelve national committees worldwide that support UN Women's work on gender equality and women's empowerment at the country level through public relations and fundraising. www.unwomen.de (opens in a new tab)