Locations
Gender and Climate Finance Collective (GCFC)
Advancing gender-responsive climate finance across Asia and the Pacific
Background
Climate change is reshaping societies across Asia and the Pacific, and its effects are intensifying weather extremes, disrupting livelihoods, and amplifying existing inequalities.
While these challenges affect everyone, the burden is not evenly shared. In many communities across the region, women play essential roles in food production, water management, and household-care systems — yet they often lack equal access to decision-making, finance, and resources.
The Gender and Climate Finance Collective (GCFC) is grounded in this reality: climate change both magnifies gender inequality and offers an opportunity to transform systems by centering gender-responsive finance, policy, and action.
By 2030, as many as 62 million women in Asia and the Pacific could be pushed into extreme poverty.
Despite this, only 2.9% of climate-related development finance in the region is actually directed toward gender equality as a priority.
Who we are
The GCFC is a regional initiative that connects governments, civil society, private stakeholders and development partners to exchange knowledge, improve policy and investment practices, and expand gender-responsive and inclusive climate-finance solutions.
Our partnership
Building on joint collaboration since 2021, the platform is co-led by UNDP, UNEP, and UN Women, bringing together their respective strengths: UNDP’s development expertise and secretariat capacity, UNEP’s environmental and climate mandate, and UN Women’s gender-equality focus. Together, they form a regional advisory and learning platform aimed at reshaping climate finance to be gender-responsive, inclusive, and ultimately transformative.
Our work is informed by and builds upon the UNDP Climate Finance Network (CFN) and UNEP/UN Women EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies programme (EmPower), leveraging their experience in bridging climate policy, gender inclusion, and finance. The CFN is supported by the UK FCDO and Sweden Sida, and EmPower is supported by the Governments of Germany, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland.
Through this partnership, GCFC brings together governments, development partners, women's rights organisations, civil society, private sector stakeholders, and researchers around a shared agenda: to embed gender and social inclusion across climate finance reforms, planning, implementation, and monitoring of investments.
What we do
We support governments and partners to design and implement climate finance frameworks that take gender equality and social inclusion with peer review and technical inputs; from planning and budgeting processes to investment decisions. Our peer-learning approach helps countries refine tools, improve budget tagging, and embed inclusive methods into everyday systems.
The Collective brings together policymakers, practitioners, researchers, civil society leaders and private-sector actors in a regional community of practice. Through regular exchanges, learning events, and technical dialogues, members share challenges, test solutions, and learn from diverse country experiences.
We convene public-private conversations, spotlight innovative financing models, and highlight examples of gender-smart investments such as blended finance initiatives, local climate budgeting, and green bonds designed with equity in mind.
Countries in Asia and the Pacific are generating important innovations in inclusive climate finance. GCFC documents these experiences and brings them into global and regional spaces, from COP and UNFCCC processes to SDG finance forums.
A central part of our work is an open-source resource hub that develops practical tools, case studies, guidance notes, and lessons from across the region. The hub helps practitioners quickly access what works — and adapt it to their own context.
Webinar
Resources
About and contact
About EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies Programme
Jointly implemented by UN Women and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) with support from the Governments of Germany, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland, EmPower is dedicated to empowering women and marginalized groups to take the lead in building climate-resilient communities.
About the Climate Finance Network (CFN)
The UNDP Climate Finance Network (CFN) supports countries in the Asia-Pacific region to strengthen their climate finance systems to enhance the effectiveness of climate finance and unlock private and blended investments needed to meet national climate goals. Operating as a regional platform, the Network promotes peer learning, knowledge exchange, and technical assistance across ministries of finance, planning, and environment. Its work is supported by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
For more information, please contact:
Mamta Kohli, Regional Gender, Social Inclusion and Adaptation Specialist, Climate Finance Network, UNDP
Athena Galao, Programme Coordinator for Gender and Climate Action, UN Women