INVESTMENT PRIORITIES
Climate-Informed SRHR Programs
Challenge
Climate change is exacerbating the health and gender inequities that women and girls face. These impacts — which include increased exposure to frequent extreme weather events, changes in disease patterns, and food and water insecurity — are not systematically being addressed in conventional health and gender-equality programming due narrow, siloed, and sector-specific approaches. Furthermore, at a global guidance level, there are no agreed-upon definitions of gender-responsive and SRHR-specific climate action guidelines to inform programming or service delivery, resulting in fragmented and inadequate programming that fails to address the root causes of inequities and health risks.
Opportunity to advance gender equality and SRHR
Addressing the impacts of climate change on sexual and reproductive health holistically can positively contribute to community resilience and adaptation efforts. By integrating climate resilience, livelihood diversification, sexual and reproductive health, and gender-responsive approaches, programs can address the multiple and interdependent threats to women’s health and resilience to climate change.
Recommended investments
Promote integrated health, economic opportunity, and climate resilience programming, co-designed with adolescents and young people in climate-affected contexts, that can offer key services like comprehensive sexuality education, access to adolescent-friendly reproductive health services, leadership training and support for climate action, and development of climate-resilient livelihoods options.
Establish a global peer-to-peer digital learning platform for young climate activists to receive training, access resources, and collaboratively share knowledge and best practices for effective advocacy approaches to shape local and national policy on integrated climate and SRHR action.
Develop a tool or framework to support implementers and stakeholders in linking the results of vulnerability and adaptation (V&A) assessments with targeted, holistic programming options.
Develop guidelines for integrating climate adaptation into ongoing SRHR-focused programming, akin to gender mainstreaming guidance.
Support innovation hubs and accelerators that bring together cross-sectoral stakeholders to formulate partnerships and develop innovative, integrated programming.
Create venues to build capacity for and foster relationship management, conflict resolution, and knowledge sharing practices among coalition members and implementation partners to enable long-term, coordinated, and effective delivery.
Illustrative metrics of success for future investments
Climate integration in SRHR programming increases among grantee partners.
Climate vulnerability among affected populations decreases, with increased positive benefits such as increased knowledge about the impact of climate change on SRHR, increased use of SRHR services, increased agricultural yields and use of climate-smart agricultural practices, and increased income from climate-resilient livelihood options.
Opportunities for resourced and supported cross-sectoral engagement and collaboration increase.
Case Study
Niger
Integrated Resilience for Women
Climate Migrants
The Tangamo Project takes an integrated approach to improve the quality of life of young women and girls who are climate migrants or affected by the migration of their partners. The program combines climate resilient agriculture training, income generation, and SRHR services.