"This decision is yet another example of the harmful sentiment that gender or 'social issues' are marginal or distractions," WEDO told CG about reports the treasury didn't contribute to the African Development Fund over climate, gender.
There's a whole lot going on around the world: This weekly brief from Climate, Gendered isn't intended to be exhaustive but rather your chance to spend just a few moments on a handful of items with the potential to disproportionately impact over half the global population — plus, the ideas that might make a difference.
Last week, CG heard from nonpartisan health policy nonprofit KFF about how the expansion of the Global Gag Rule to prevent organizations that receive U.S. tax dollars from providing, promoting, or discussing not only abortion but also diversity, equity, inclusion, and "gender ideology" could impact efforts at the intersection of gender and climate. Disaster response intended to support LGBTQ+ people, for example, could lose out on essential funding.
This week, Jamie Vernaelde, senior researcher for global policy and advocacy at reproductive justice organization Ipas, confirmed to CG that the new rule "puts gender- and climate-responsive programs at risk by applying ideological restrictions across a far wider share of U.S. foreign aid, affecting many more organizations."
"By undermining integrated disaster responses that combine reproductive health, gender equity, and climate resilience, it reduces access to essential services when climate shocks hit hardest," Vernaelde continued. "The result is weaker humanitarian response today and diminished resilience for the future."
An Ipas release issued in the wake of the rule's expansion noted a Lancet study that projected 14 million deaths may ultimately be attributable to the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development should cuts to its foreign aid persist through 2030. With the expanded rule set to initiate further cuts as destructive extreme weather events only intensify, organizations like KFF, Ipas, and more are raising awareness about the issue — and how those concerned might address it.
On this week's episode of the podcast rePROs Fight Back, Beirne Roose-Snyder told listeners in the U.S. to "[encourage] your members of Congress to speak out but also to use their oversight power," citing, after the 39-minute mark, costs and inefficiencies associated with the policy as reasons for lawmakers to act against it.
Roose-Snyder, senior policy fellow at the Council for Global Equality, went on to say that the very point of gag rules is to break up relationships and partnerships, "So everything we can do to not do that is helping mitigate the harm of the rule."
CG heard from Zenaida Machado, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, last week about impacts on pregnant people and the need for protection from gender-based violence in the wake of recent floods in southern and central Mozambique as well as the lack of gender equity in disaster response leadership.
One day later, Xavier Creach, the country representative for the U.N. Refugee Agency — also known as UNHCR — spoke at a press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland. He noted that the humanitarian response to address the needs of the nearly 400,000 people displaced by floods is "under severe strain," with conflict in the northern part of the country having already displaced over 300,000. Creach said, "UNHCR Mozambique requires $38.2 million in 2026 to meet the rising needs across the country."
In a February 3 press release, the nongovernmental organization CARE noted that Mozambique is currently at the peak of its rainy season. With additional rainfall threatening to further compound the layered crisis, CARE called for "donors and the international community to urgently scale up … funding," saying that "an increase in the quality and quantity of funding to local and women-led organizations is crucial."
While researchers looking at data from the Peruvian Highlands found that cold shocks can increase the probability of intimate partner violence — with the prime driver in their study identified as the loss of agricultural income — their findings also pointed to possible solutions.
"Our research reveals an encouraging finding: Social safety net programs can substantially buffer households against climate-induced violence," study co-author Leah Lakdawala told CG. That is, addressing climate-related economic needs through ongoing support might prevent some IPV from ever happening.
On February 2, Reuters reported that a spokesperson for the U.S. Treasury indicated the current administration would not contribute to the African Development Fund due to concerns that the ADF, which provides development financing to low-income regional member countries, had over-prioritized certain issues. "Like too many other institutions the ADF has adopted a disproportionate focus on climate change, gender, and social issues, and as such the United States did not announce a pledge at the Fund's 17th replenishment," the spokesperson told the outlet.
The U.N. Population Fund and the Women's Environment and Development Organization both shared responses to the news with CG via email. WEDO said the move "fundamentally [misunderstands] the crisis facing the world today — especially its impacts on frontline communities, women, girls, and gender diverse people."
UNFPA told CG, "In Africa, the intersection of climate and gender is a matter of survival. The climate crisis disrupts access to essential health services — heightening maternal health complications — and increases the risk of gender-based violence for women and girls." The agency went on to identify additional health and safety concerns exacerbated by rising global temperatures and shifting weather patterns, including a rise in child marriage.
"Despite 92 countries affirming commitments to gender equality and social inclusion in climate action, just 2% of climate finance supports gender equality initiatives," UNFPA said, calling for more investments in adaptation specifically.
Such concerns over a lack of funding for gender-responsive climate work are not new. They reflect a kind of double reality, with some in governance considering gender and climate efforts overrepresented as priorities and others pointing to insufficient support at their nexus.
"For the U.S. administration to say that development finance has 'too much' of a focus on climate and gender is to fundamentally misunderstand the crisis facing the world today — especially its impacts on frontline communities, women, girls, and gender diverse people in the Majority World," WEDO told CG. "This decision is yet another example of the harmful sentiment that gender or 'social issues' are marginal or distractions rather than central and fundamental to building policies that put human rights at the center."
A landslide in the Democratic Republic of Congo last week caused the collapse of the Rubaya mine. More than 200 people were killed in the disaster, according to Reuters, which reported that the mine in North Kivu produces 15% of the world's coltan. Coltan is used in many modern devices, including electric vehicles, and is seen as key to the clean energy transition.
While men have traditionally dominated the field, more women have become miners, sometimes driven by conflict-related instability and as part of a push for gender equity. It has not yet been reported whether any of the miners killed in the collapse were women. But Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, a spokesperson for the rebel-appointed provincial governor, said fatalities included "miners, children, and market women."
The nonprofit Global Witness told CG about the steps it recommends to improve safety in the mines and region, where human rights abuses have previously been reported.
"While [the rebel group] M23 is in control of the mines, it should put in place measures to stabilize the pits, including structural reinforcement to support the walls, have evacuation routes etc, and offer protective equipment for the miners," Alex Kopp, senior policy and advocacy advisor, wrote in a statement to CG. "Media attention [to] the accident will hopefully press M23 to act in this way."
A U.N. report in September 2025 indicated that "all parties to the conflict in the Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law," according to a release, which underscored M23's use of widespread sexual violence against women, girls, men, boys, and LGBTQ+ people. With such violations in mind, Kopp said, "Companies should stop buying coltan that is at risk to come from Rubaya and governments should put pressure on Rwanda to stop its support to M23."
As recently as February 5, the U.N. said in a news release, "the group [M23] is supported by the Rwandan armed forces, an allegation [the Rwandan capital of] Kigali has repeatedly denied."
Ricardo Funari recently took second place in a U.N.-backed photostory contest from Onewater for his collection of photographs documenting women on the frontlines of flood and drought in Brazil.
"I felt compelled to tell these stories in Brazil because I kept meeting women who were doing everything at once — caring for children and elders, organizing neighbors, dealing with droughts or floods — but whose voices rarely reached beyond their communities," the Rio de Janeiro-based photographer told CG via email. He said some of the photos in the collection date back to 1998.
Funari said it was important to show these women as leaders amid the crisis and not reduce them, inaccurately, to "just victims." He also sees this as a part of ethical photo documentation — and ethical photo documentation as a powerful tool.
"Women are often the first to feel the lack or excess of water: They fetch it, ration it, cook with it, wash with it, and rebuild homes after floods. Yet in most public debates, they appear only as numbers in a report," Funari said. "Photography can turn statistics into stories and make it harder to ignore who is actually carrying the burden of climate disruption."
The photo collection captures women's experiences of drought in the sertão — northeastern Brazil's semi-arid region — and of flooding in the river communities of the Amazon.
Asked about a particularly notable memory from his work, Funari said it was photographing Francisca Chagas dos Santos, "a woman from the Amazon, sitting in waist-deep flood water on her son’s porch, smoking a cigarette and laughing between rounds of scrubbing the walls." Funari continued, "That quiet resilience is powerful, but it is also a reminder that their strength is no excuse for the lack of infrastructure and political will that keeps putting them in harm’s way."
The Ministry of Tourism and Environment of the Republic of Maldives said that it hosted a workshop in late January to kick off development of the archipelagic country's first Climate Change Gender Action Plan, according to a news release.
The 32 participants "worked collaboratively to develop a preliminary conceptual framework and to identify and prioritise gender-responsive climate actions." With the South Asian country's 26 atolls threatened by coral die-off, rising sea levels, erosion, and saltwater intrusion, advocates see the gender-based climate policy as an urgently needed tool.
As glaciers melt and sea levels rise, huge portions of the tourist destination could become uninhabitable in the coming decades. And while visitors may choose to come and go, gender-sensitive planning for climate-induced migration will be essential for residents of the Maldives and all island nations. So will gender-sensitive planning for those who remain on the islands and require stable food systems and fresh drinking water.
In 2025, Ashley Lashley, a resident of the island country of Barbados and a current member of the U.N. Secretary-General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, spoke at a virtual event on the water crisis in Small Island Developing States. "When we are doing beach cleanups [at home] we notice that one of the major polluters is that of plastic bottled water," Lashley said, noting that decreasing rainfalls and saltwater intrusion of groundwater sources have left many islands reliant on bottled water.
With both saltwater intrusion and plastics exposure linked to reproductive health concerns, Lashley's remarks point to just one example of the need for comprehensive solutions tailored to the needs of island communities.
One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring a spotlight to the reality that proliferating pollution, increasing temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather, habitat loss, and more can uniquely and disproportionately impact girls, women, trans communities, and non-binary people — especially those from communities of color, Indigenous people, disabled people, immigrants and displaced people, people experiencing poverty, and residents of low- and middle-income countries. We're also interested in the climate crises and concerns that can disproportionately affect men and boys.
This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We welcome with gratitude your feedback and observations. And please feel encouraged to share one way you noticed this week that climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.
"Climate justice and social injustice are completely interlinked," said Isabel González Whitaker of Moms Clean Air Force during a virtual event focused largely on the actions of federal agents across the U.S. targeting immigrants and others.
"We stress the importance of including and recognizing the voices of women leaders as key actors within their communities," said Catalina Vargas, CARE's country director in Colombia, which borders Venezuela, in a statement to CG.
"Abortion care must be explicitly included in climate and disaster response frameworks as a core health service," researchers Tamara Fetters of Ipas and Ruvani Jayaweera of Ibis Reproductive Health told CG.
"Using the Earth's resources to power tools that facilitate violence against women is a clear case of environmental and social injustice," Brionté McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters, told CG.
