Gender-responsive climate adaptation finance: time to turn normative expectations into action
By Eveliina Laine, Doctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland
Under international climate law, developed country Parties have committed to providing financial support for developing country Parties to adapt to adverse climate effects, as agreed in Article 4(4) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and Article 9(1) of the Paris Agreement in 2015. With the ever-intensifying climate impacts, the issue of international adaptation finance has grown in prominence and urgency, featuring high on the agenda of annual climate negotiations.
Much of this growing attention has focused on the scale of adaptation finance: how much is needed, where it should come from, in what form, and where it should be allocated, as well as the persistent shortfalls across these dimensions. In addition to the quantitative climate finance mobilisation targets of USD 100 billion annually by 2020 (agreed in 2009) and USD 300 billion annually by 2035 (agreed in 2024), which cover both mitigation and adaptation finance for developing countries, Parties have also adopted specific adaptation finance goals. The adaptation goals are more ambiguously worded to ‘at least double’ adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025, agreed in 2021, and ‘efforts to at least triple’ adaptation finance by 2035, agreed in 2025. Many elements related to these targets have been and remain unclear and debated, but they at the very least signal understanding that increased efforts to finance adaptation action in climate-vulnerable developing country Parties are needed.
Increasingly, concerns regarding the more qualitative elements of the finance have become more evident, including who has access to the finance and who benefits from it. It is now known that gender and other social inequities exacerbate vulnerability to adverse climate impacts and limit adaptation capacities. Women and girls often face disproportionate climate vulnerability in many contexts due to pre-existing inequalities, such as limited decision-making power and access to resources. A so-called gender perspective, however, is not only centred around women or men, but rather the underlying and multidimensional structures, processes and power dynamics between and among different groups that affect vulnerability and adaptation capacities. High-level reports increasingly assess gender integration in climate finance efforts, showing evidence of incremental yet uneven progress, with weak transparency (e.g. UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2025; Oxfam Climate Finance Shadow Report 2025).
Against this background, this blogpost explores whether the commitment to gender-responsive adaptation finance has evolved from an aspirational goal into an operational norm and discusses some of the key challenges and ways forward in this regard.
The normative foundation: gender equality in international climate law
Gender was not initially a consideration in the UNFCCC, but it gradually started being introduced in decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP). While initial gender references in COP decision texts were limited concerns about gender balance, equal participation and representation of women, more elements were gradually incorporated, leading to the Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG) in 2014. The LWPG has been further strengthened through successive Gender Action Plans (GAPs), the Enhanced LWPG in 2019, its 10-year extension in 2024, and the Belém GAP in 2025, with growing attention to gender-responsive finance.
The Paris Agreement of 2015 includes three explicit references to gender. The first one features in the preamble where it is acknowledged that Parties should ‘respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights […] as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity’. Article 7(5) states that adaptation action ‘should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach taking into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems’. A third reference is found in Article 11(2) which states that capacity-building ‘should be an effective, iterative process that is participatory, cross-cutting and gender-responsive’. These provisions signal a shift away from a traditional state-centric approach towards recognising climate vulnerability and the need for climate action among affected groups and communities, not only countries, with the importance of a gender perspective explicitly acknowledged.
The Paris Agreement has been complemented by increasing references to gender-responsiveness in annual negotiations and COP decisions, including in specific finance decision texts. The quantitative finance goal agreed in 2024 for instance urges promoting ‘the inclusion and extension of benefits to vulnerable communities and groups in climate finance efforts, including women and girls’. Furthermore, regular references to gender can be found in the COP guidance to the multilateral funds that serve the climate treaties and thus act as the most direct implementers of high-level guidance on gender-responsive finance.
Gender practices of the multilateral climate funds
There are six multilateral funds that serve the UNFCCC and/or the Paris Agreement: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), Adaptation Fund (AF), Green Climate Fund (GCF), and Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). While the volumes of finance channelled via these funds remain modest relative to total climate finance flows, their integral connection to the climate treaties makes their approaches to operationalising gender-responsiveness particularly instructive.
While only the GCF, established in 2010, and the FRLD, established in 2022, have explicit reference to a gender-sensitive and gender-responsive approach in their very mandate, all the funds have gender policies in place. In fact, GEF, AF and GCF have all updated their original gender policies and had successive iterations of GAPs. In July 2026, GCF adopted a new GAP 2026-2031 and GEF updated its Gender Policy, and AF has piloted and implemented a new Gender Scorecard in recent years to improve data collection and analysis for tracking gender mainstreaming in its projects. These recent developments demonstrate that gender-responsiveness is highly topical and very much an ongoing process of learning and iteration.
A key feature in the funds’ policies is that they outline mandatory requirements for gender mainstreaming across their operations and project cycles – from inclusive stakeholder consultations and project design to implementation and continuous monitoring. These requirements are largely of procedural nature, such as conducting a gender analysis, developing measures to address any gaps identified, tracking progress in relation to these, as well as providing capacity-building. While the policies and action plans of the funds are not identical, they all reflect a common understanding of needing to go beyond avoiding harm to actually advancing gender equality through targeted efforts to reduce inequality. AF is also explicit in integrating intersectionality as a lens, that is, acknowledging that gender overlaps with other sociocultural factors, such as ethnicity, health, socio-economic status, and age.
At the outset, it is clear that mandatory procedural requirements for gender-responsiveness are in place. Although such requirements do not necessarily guarantee substantive outcomes, they can be expected to facilitate institutional learning and more gender-responsive practices over time. However, greater volumes of finance will be needed to strengthen the credibility of these funds as key mechanisms for implementing climate finance commitments. In 2024, the COP decided ‘to pursue efforts to at least triple annual outflows from [the multilateral climate funds] from 2022 levels by 2030 at the latest’. While this signals greater expectations regarding the role of the funds, it remains to be seen whether such ambitions will be realised in a context characterised by competing fiscal pressures and persistent shortfalls in climate finance.
Challenges and ways forward
The insufficiency of adaptation finance at large remains a key challenge. UNEP estimates that the future (year 2035) adaptation finance needs are approximately 12–14 times as much as current international public adaptation finance flows, and even if the UNFCCC-level targets were achieved, a large adaptation finance gap would remain. Moreover, contributor countries have repeatedly fallen short of their finance commitments, while competing budgetary demands and reductions in official development assistance further constrain the availability of public resources (e.g. ODI 2025). These financial constraints make the quality of finance all the more important: when resources remain scarce, ensuring that available funds are used effectively and in a gender-responsive manner becomes even more critical.
Given the limitations in public funding, mobilising additional resources from private sources has become an increasingly important part of the adaptation finance discussion. This can pose a risk that gender-responsive approaches remain confined to the limited flows of public finance. One useful initiative to tackle this is 2X Global that works to incentivise private investments in gender-responsive climate finance. In this endeavour, 2X Global also recognises the central role of the multilateral climate funds in leveraging their financing to involve and incentivise private-sector actors and in establishing standards to guide finance towards gender-responsive action. Ensuring that gender-responsiveness is embedded in public-private and blended finance approaches will be essential if efforts to scale up finance are to advance both climate and gender objectives.
Challenges concerning both the scale of finance and the standards governing its provision are closely tied to broader governance issues. Most gender-related expectations under climate law derive from COP decisions and institutional policies rather than legally binding treaty provisions. While that is arguably a weakness, the gradual institutionalisation of gender-responsive practices should not be dismissed. The development of policies, reporting frameworks, evaluation processes, and implementation guidance can foster continuous learning and adaptation over time, leading to important lessons even where legal provisions remain relatively weak.
Indeed, strengthening harmonised standards and reporting requirements represents one practical tool for advancing gender-responsive adaptation finance. At present, such reporting at the international level relies largely on voluntary provisions within climate finance and adaptation governance frameworks (such as the Biennial Transparency Reports and new Belém Adaptation Indicators). More systematic reporting would not only improve transparency and accountability but also help address evidence gaps. However, international reporting and monitoring can only take the agenda so far. Ensuring meaningful recipient-country and local ownership and participation remains essential, as the effectiveness and equity of gender-responsive adaptation finance ultimately depends on how priorities are identified, implemented, and experienced on the ground.
Looking ahead, strengthening gender-responsive adaptation finance will require not only improved rules and procedures but also stronger connections across institutions and policy domains at different levels. Enhanced cooperation between climate, development, gender equality, and human rights actors could help leverage limited resources more effectively and avoid fragmented approaches. In a context of persistent funding constraints, identifying synergies across regimes and fostering collaboration among diverse actors at all steps of the financing chain may be one of the most promising pathways for advancing both adaptation and gender objectives.
Finally, it needs to be noted that developments in gender-responsive adaptation finance are inevitably connected to wider political debates surrounding climate finance governance, including questions of responsibility, burden-sharing, and the contributor base. More broadly, efforts to advance gender equality are increasingly taking place in a challenging political environment. Recent evidence is concerning: the Gender Snapshot 2026 warns of a broader political retreat from gender equality, finding that institutions established to advance gender equality are being weakened, funding is declining, and progress across gender equality indicators remains off track. As commitments come under increasing political pressure, the continued production of evidence, implementation, and the persistence of actors working across climate and gender governance can help sustain momentum even where political support fluctuates.
This blogpost is based on ongoing doctoral research and an upcoming article on gender-responsive adaptation finance.