Background and Rationale:
Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time, exerting widespread and accelerating impacts on both natural and human systems. The IPCC highlights that human-induced climate change has already led to significant losses and damages across ecosystems, livelihoods, and infrastructure. It has also intensified the frequency and severity of extreme events—such as heatwaves, droughts, heavy rainfall, tropical cyclones, and sea-level rise—thereby heightening disaster risk and underscoring the urgent need for proactive risk governance and early warning systems. These impacts are especially severe in climate-vulnerable regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), where risks to water and food security, biodiversity, human health, and livelihoods are projected to rise sharply with every additional increment of warming. These risks trigger cascading effects that amplify exposure and vulnerability, particularly in hazard-prone areas. The scientific consensus emphasizes that responding to climate change requires not only reducing emissions and increasing resilience but also addressing underlying inequalities that drive vulnerability. The IPCC stresses that inclusive governance, equitable access to resources, and the integration of diverse knowledge systems are essential pillars of climate-resilient development (IPCC, 2022).
In this context, gender inequality constitutes a structural driver and amplifier of vulnerability. Women and girls—especially those from rural, afro-descendant, indigenous, and low-income communities in LAC—face multiple intersecting barriers that limit their capacity to adapt and respond to the effects of climate change and disasters. These include lower access to land, financial services, education, technology, and decision-making spaces, as well as overrepresentation in informal employment and unpaid care work. While data availability is still scarce, the following figures were documented:
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Climate change is projected to push over 158.3 million women and girls into extreme poverty, 16 million more than the total number of men and boys (UN Women, 2023). In 2023, an average of 8.9% (approximately 26 million) of women in Latin America were employed in environmental sectors such as agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing—sectors particularly vulnerable to the impacts of multiple environmental crises. This figure reached as high as 30% in some countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, and Peru, based on the most recent data available for each country (UN Women, 2024; ECLAC, 2025).
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If a monetary value were assigned to women’s unpaid care and domestic work, it would exceed 40% of GDP in some countries in the region (UN Women, 2024).
While it is clear that women are disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change and disaster risk, they are also key agents of resilience and climate leadership. Across LAC, women are leading community-based adaptation, agroecology, sustainable resource management, and disaster preparedness initiatives, often serving as first responders and knowledge holders in crisis situations. Their contributions, though often underrecognized, are central to building more effective and equitable climate solutions. For example:
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In Ecuador, family farming led by rural women ensures more than 60% of food production, through diversified production and crop rotation (FAO, 2024).
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Companies with 3% or more gender diversity on their boards are better at curbing the growth of carbon emissions—showing an average increase of only 0.6%, compared to 3.5% in companies with no women on their boards. This is because companies with gender-diverse boards tend to have stronger climate governance strategies, greater investments in energy efficiency, and more robust environmental reporting compared to those lacking gender diversity (IDB, 2023).
Despite these contributions, women’s knowledge, needs and leadership remain largely excluded from national climate strategies, funding mechanisms, and multilateral negotiation spaces. This exclusion is particularly evident in sectoral areas that are critical for effective climate response, such as:
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Meteorology and climate information services are essential for early warning systems and anticipatory action, yet women often lack access to tailored climate and hazard information, particularly in rural and Indigenous areas. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has documented persistent gender gaps in the design and dissemination of climate services.
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The estimated number of people displaced by the impacts of climate change vary greatly. However, women and girls on the move face heightened risks of gender-based violence, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and denial of basic rights, especially when relying on irregular migration routes (UN Women, 2024).
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Disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies often lack gender analysis and meaningful participation by women, which limits their effectiveness and equity. According to UNDRR, only a minority of DRR policies in LAC explicitly integrate gender considerations or promote women's leadership in risk governance (IBC on Climate Change and Resilience, 2024).
As LAC prepares for COP30, the region has a critical opportunity to champion integrated, gender-responsive climate action. But this cannot be achieved in isolation. As a result, this webinar is designed as a platform for collective reflection, learning and advocacy. It brings together UN agencies working on gender equality (UN Women) as the leading agency, migration (IOM), and disaster risk reduction (UNDRR), along with key stakeholders from across the region. The goal is not only to exchange tools and good practices, but to strengthen a regional ecosystem of actors capable of influencing policy, amplifying gender-responsive messages, and contributing to more coherent, effective and just climate action. By connecting agendas and building shared understanding, this session aims to generate strategic messages and practical entry points that can inform negotiations and implementation efforts on the road to COP30 and beyond.
The session contributes to the priorities of the Issue-Based Coalition on Climate Change and Resilience (IBC-CCR) by:
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Promoting a whole-of-system, intersectional approach to climate action and disaster risk reduction
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Fostering interagency collaboration around shared goals and messaging
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Positioning gender equality as a driver of effective climate adaptation and resilience
Objectives:
- Present concrete tools and initiatives from different stakeholders that integrate gender equality into climate-related sectors.
- Identify shared messages and good practices that can inform gender-responsive advocacy and decision-making at COP30.
- Foster interagency collaboration and dialogue across gender, migration, climate data, and disaster risk reduction.
Target Audience:
- UN system actors, especially Resident Coordinators, IBC members and thematic coalitions.
- Government counterparts (Ministries of Gender, Environment, Planning, etc.), especially negotiators involved in the UNFCCC process and the preparation of national positions for COP30.
- Civil society organizations and feminist networks.
- Donor agencies and development partners.
Expected Outcomes:
- Shared knowledge on gender-responsive tools, approaches, and normative frameworks used by Ministries, civil society and UN agencies in the areas of climate, migration, and disaster risk reduction.
- Identification of good practices and lessons learned that can inform national preparations and negotiation strategies for COP30.
- Agreed key messages to support coordinated interagency advocacy and communication in the lead-up to COP30, aligned with the priorities of the Issue-Based Coalition on Climate Change and Resilience (IBC-CCR).
- Strengthened interagency collaboration, fostering synergies across gender, climate, migration and DRR agendas at regional and national levels.
- Documentation of the dialogue to be shared with stakeholders and uploaded to the IBC website as a reference for advocacy and knowledge sharing.
Zoom