GAGGA at COP31: Connecting Extreme Heat, Climate Finance and Locally Led Action
As the world gathers in Antalya, Türkiye, for COP31, the climate crisis is intensifying alongside shrinking civic space, rising authoritarianism and declining development assistance. Yet the women and communities most affected by climate change remain among the least resourced to respond.
GAGGA’s advocacy at COP31 calls for feminist, locally led solutions that connect climate justice, biodiversity, land restoration and community resilience – and for climate finance that reaches the women-led organisations already driving change.
Through a global network of women’s funds, socio-environmental funds, NGOs and grassroots movements, GAGGA has channelled more than €50 million to over 2,600 women-led and community-based partners across 60 countries. At COP31, we are bringing their experiences and priorities into global conversations on four interconnected themes.
Our priorities at COP31
- Extreme heat is a gendered health and climate justice crisis
New GAGGA research, based on Feminist Participatory Action Research across seven countries in Central America and Africa, reveals how extreme heat intensifies women’s workloads, threatens their mental, reproductive and maternal health, contributes to violence and conflict, and undermines livelihoods. Women-led organisations are already responding through Indigenous knowledge, collective water management, agroecology and community support – but much of this work relies on unpaid labour.
Our call: Recognise extreme heat as a distinct, gendered risk across climate adaptation, health, labour and disaster risk reduction policies. Invest in women-led, community-based responses and address the structural inequalities that determine who is exposed and who can adapt.
Explore: Extreme Heat, Health and Climate Justice: Women-Led Solutions for Resilient Communities. Full research report and recommendations coming ahead of COP31.
- A gender-just transition must protect land, care and livelihoods
The transition away from fossil fuels must not reproduce extractive systems through land dispossession, mining for transition minerals or harmful carbon offset schemes. A just transition must support community-owned renewable energy, agroecology, sustainable livelihoods and the protection of commons, while recognising and redistributing unpaid care work.
Our call: A gender-just transition must protect land and Indigenous rights, reject false solutions, support community-owned alternatives, and redistribute power and care.
- Locally led adaptation requires investment in the wider ecosystem
Communities need more than short-term projects or small grants. Women’s funds, feminist funds and socio-environmental funds connect resources with local priorities, build trusted relationships and strengthen the collective action that makes locally led adaptation possible.
Our call: Fund effective intermediaries and the wider ecosystem through flexible, multi-year support that strengthens grassroots organisations, networks and movements.
- Gender-just climate finance must reach frontline organisations
Despite their vital contributions to climate resilience, biodiversity conservation and land restoration, women’s rights organisations receive just 0.22% of climate-related official development assistance. Restrictive eligibility criteria, burdensome reporting and short funding cycles continue to exclude grassroots organisations.
Our call: Shift resources and decision-making power to women-led organisations through direct, flexible, multi-year core funding and accessible funding mechanisms.
One interconnected crisis requires integrated solutions
The three Rio Conventions – the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – address interconnected environmental crises. Yet policy and finance too often continue to operate in silos.
Women-led organisations do not separate climate adaptation from biodiversity, land restoration, water governance and food security. Through agroecology, Indigenous knowledge, community-led restoration and collective resource management, they deliver integrated solutions rooted in local realities.
Delivering on global environmental commitments requires feminist, locally led approaches – and investment in the organisations and funding ecosystems that sustain them.
GAGGA also stands with the Women and Gender Constituency’s priorities for COP31: implementing the Belém Gender Action Plan, advancing gender-responsive adaptation, promoting a feminist just transition and reforming UNFCCC governance.
Meet GAGGA and our partners at COP31
Monday, 9 November | 13:00–14:00
GAGGA supports the event “UNFCCC COP31: Nature Security and Women-Led Resilience in a Changing Climate” in the UK Pavillion.
The event will explore how biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation create distinct gendered security risks, and how women are already leading responses that strengthen community resilience. Two GAGGA speakers will contribute, bringing frontline perspectives on women’s leadership, environmental justice and community-led solutions. The event will also provide an opportunity to amplify GAGGA’s upcoming research, Extreme Heat, Health and Climate Justice: Women-Led Solutions for Resilient Communities, and connect its findings on the gendered impacts of climate and environmental crises with wider discussions on nature, security and resilience.
Further details to follow.
Saturday, 14 November | 16:30 – 17:30
GAGGA supports the event “D&C Days at COP31: A look into the future”
As climate action shifts from negotiation to implementation, this session will bring together climate negotiators, practitioners and locally led adaptation advocates to explore how to bridge the gap between grassroots movements and formal climate processes. GAGGA speakers will contribute perspectives on the role of effective intermediaries and feminist funding ecosystems in ensuring that locally led adaptation reaches women-led and community-based organisations. The discussion will also look ahead to COP32 in Ethiopia and reflect on how Development and Climate Days can strengthen its role in advancing implementation, accountability and learning.
Further details to follow.
Wednesday, 18 November | 16:45–18:15
Official COP31 side event: “Beyond Participation: Resourcing Women-Led Climate Solutions in the Face of El Niño”
Co-organised by GAGGA, NTFP-EP, NIDWAN and Vital Voices, this event will spotlight the leadership of women environmental human rights defenders and women-led community-based organisations in responding to climate impacts, including extreme heat and El Niño-related risks. Drawing on first-hand experiences from Indigenous women and grassroots organisations across the Global South, the discussion will amplify findings from GAGGA’s forthcoming research on extreme heat, health and climate justice, and showcase community-led solutions grounded in local and Indigenous knowledge.
Advancing the implementation of the Belém Gender Action Plan, the event will bring community voices into dialogue with climate finance institutions, bilateral donors and other decision-makers. Together, speakers will explore how to overcome barriers to climate finance and ensure women-led organisations are recognised and resourced as strategic partners – with the flexible, sustained funding and decision-making power needed to drive gender-just climate action.
Further details to follow.
Amplify GAGGA’s COP31 messages
Use GAGGA’s social media toolkit to share our collective recommendations, support frontline voices and advocate for gender-just climate action. The toolkit can also serve as speaking notes for events and meetings.
Follow GAGGA on LinkedIn to share our research, amplify our partners and help build momentum for change.
Our message at COP31 is clear: climate and environmental commitments will only deliver lasting change when women-led organisations and communities have the resources, rights and decision-making power to lead.