Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century — and it’s not gender neutral.
The health impacts of climate change are increasingly being recognized, but the specific impacts on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are often overlooked.
Without action, we risk the reversal of decades of progress for women and girls – and we’ll lose crucial change agents for climate resilience.
The Connection between Climate Change and SRHR
Climate change has direct impacts on sexual and reproductive health. For example, extreme flooding can destroy clinics, leaving women without appropriate care. As climate-related disasters grow, so do the risks of pregnancy complications, healthcare disruptions, disease prevalence, unsafe abortion, loss of access to contraception, and gender-based violence.
These interactions are crucial for climate, gender, and health funders to understand because:
Innovation is possible: There are multiple possible levers to pull in order to increase the resilience of women, girls, and gender-marginalized people to climate change – including social, economic, environmental, and infrastructure mechanisms. See our case studies and landscape assessment to explore the diversity of climate-SRHR solutions organizations are currently trying.
Adaptive implementation is key: Even if an intervention increases the adaptive capacity of women in a community, if the frequency of climate shocks increases and their exposure to those climate shocks increases, outcomes may still worsen. Climate change is dynamic and unpredictable. Any solution implementation approach must be agile, data-driven, and responsive. See our strategy framework for tips on developing your investment or intervention strategy.
What we measure and track needs to evolve: In order to assess effectiveness in building climate resilience, we need more robust metrics. See recommendations in our MEL section for how funders must shift their monitoring and evaluation approach in order to track an expanded set of variables and interactions.
Climate change also impacts SRHR indirectly, through complex interactions with existing gendered social inequalities. Here is one example of how a climate hazard (drought) interacts with social systems to produce worsened SRHR outcomes:
The Risks of Inaction
If we fail to consider the impacts of climate change on SRHR, we face serious risks:
Backsliding on SRHR and gender equality outcomes:
If we continue a status quo approach to SRHR programming without considering the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, we risk not meeting the SRHR needs of women in climate change-affected areas, and, at worst, may put women at greater risk.
Mis-diagnosis of barriers to programmatic impact:
Climate change interacts with existing social, economic, and environmental conditions in complex and emergent ways. Ignoring or not understanding climate impacts on SRHR can lead funders and implementers to misdiagnose what factors are contributing to poor health or gender equality outcomes or preventing further progress in a community. If an investment or implementation strategy is based on an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of the drivers of a problem, the resulting interventions and investments will be limited in their potential effectiveness.
Reactive funding in response to crises rather than proactive future-looking funding strategies:
Without proactively considering the near-term and long-term climate impacts on SRH by geography, funders may find themselves in a cycle of reactive funding, responding to climate-fueled SRHR crises as they arise, rather than strategically planning for the future. If funders don’t take into account the scientific evidence and anticipate where and how climate-driven poor SRHR outcomes will increase in the next 5+ years, investments risk the missing new opportunities for transformative change and resilient SRHR outcomes.
The Good News
Through integrated investment and action, we can have an impact-multiplier effect on climate resilience and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Imagine a world where women have access to comprehensive sexual health services resilient to climate shocks, where they are able to exercise choice without compromising their bodily autonomy, and where they are leaders for climate resilience initiatives for their community.
From bolstering climate-resilient and low-emission healthcare infrastructure, to supporting innovations in longer-acting, environmentally sustainable contraceptive initiatives, to investing in gender-transformative disaster response systems, funders can pave the way for a brighter future — one where climate justice and reproductive justice go hand-in-hand.
This site provides practical support and evidence-based guidance for action towards making that future a reality.
