Dear partners, friends, and allies, 

London Climate Action Week made one thing clear: the future of climate finance must be gender-just and locally led. Across three events co-hosted with our partners and allies, GAGGA joined funders, advocates, and movement leaders to explore how resources can move more directly, flexibly, and equitably to the communities already advancing climate solutions. 

We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined us in London and online. These conversations reflected the passion, urgency, and collective commitment our community brings to advancing gender-just climate finance. 

We also want to extend heartfelt thanks to our co-hosts – Alliance Magazine, International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, Social Development Direct, 2X Global, and Womanity. These conversations were made possible through collective effort, and we are grateful to work alongside organisations advancing women-led, Indigenous-led, and community-led climate solutions. 

This year is especially meaningful as it marks GAGGA’s 10th year of championing gender-just climate action. Over the past decade, together with our partners and donors, we have: 

Channelled over €50 million to women-led, community-based organisations across the Global  South Strengthened over 2,500 women-led organisations Supported over 2,360 advocacy initiatives leading to 173 policy shifts of governments and  investors  Facilitated 146 Women Environmental Human Rights Defenders to participate in international environmental and climate decision-making forums.

These milestones reflect what becomes possible when resources move to the people and movements closest to the solutions. As we look to the next decade, our mission is to help make this work even more powerful, connected, and lasting. 

As we mark this milestone, we invite you to help us Fund Forward. 

At GAGGA, we see funding not as a simple transaction but as a multiplier that scales collective climate action. When resources move directly and flexibly to women-led, community-rooted organisations, they strengthen movements, protect ecosystems, influence policy, and create ripple effects that last for generations. 

For those who couldn’t join us in London, we invite you to read on for key reflections, resources, and moments from a week of conversations focused on shifting power, moving money differently, and resourcing the climate solutions already taking root. 

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Funding climate action at scale: lessons from effective global philanthropy

Our time at London Climate Action Week began with a critical question: How do we redefine “scale” to ensure critical resources reach the frontline, women-led solutions driving real change? With this question in mind, GAGGA was thrilled to co-host ‘Funding climate action at scale: lessons from effective global philanthropy’ alongside Alliance Magazine. The dynamic and thoughtful panel discussion featured Sonia Medina of Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Juliana Tinoco of Alianza Socioambiental Fondos del Sur, and Florencia Ortúzar Greene of AIDA, a GAGGA partner of 10 years, and was moderated by Elika Roohi of Alliance Magazine. 

The main messaging coming from the discussion was that too often, climate finance operates under the assumption that scale requires centralization and standardization. However, scale actually happens by strengthening connections, building flexible infrastructure, investing in local capacity, and giving power to frontline communities, the first responders and long-time stewards of climate action. At GAGGA, we have seen it in practice: true scale happens through multiplication, not replication. 

As Juliana Tinoco of Alianza Socioambiental Fondos del Sur and the Global South House, an ally of GAGGA, shared during our event: “Perhaps scale is not about making every solution look the same. Perhaps scale is about strengthening the ecosystems, relationships, and institutions that allow thousands of local solutions to thrive.” 

Another crucial point that emerged was that philanthropy can be a powerful catalyst for change. It has the flexibility to take risks, build platforms and mobilize action quickly. Yet the challenge is not simply mobilizing more resources – it is ensuring those resources reach the actors best placed to drive lasting transformation. The discussion explored which philanthropic models are already shifting power, why they work, and where the sector must continue to evolve. 

The conversations continued in the afternoon through four interactive workshops that unpacked some of the key barriers to gender-just climate finance. Participants explored how institutional constraints often privilege organisational risk over the risks faced by communities on the frontlines; challenged conventional ideas of “scale” by asking what meaningful impact looks like when solutions are locally led; reflected on whose evidence and expertise are recognised in climate finance, highlighting how community knowledge continues to be undervalued; and examined what makes an effective intermediary – one that facilitates trust, direct access to resources and genuine power transfer, rather than becoming another bottleneck. Together, these discussions reinforced a common message: transforming climate finance requires rethinking not only where funding flows, but also how decisions are made, whose knowledge is valued, and who holds power. 

For those who were unable to attend, watch the full event here! 

We  invite you to dive deeper with the following resources: 

• Alliance Magazine, Noemi Grütter and Vanessa Purper – Rethinking scale: What alliances teach us about scale without centralisation
• Alliance Magazine, Paula Sevilla Núñez, Noemi Grütter and Juliana Tinoco – Philanthropy’s defining test: From risk aversion to climate and gender justice
• Alliance Magazine, Elika Roohi – Climate change is not gender neutral, but climate funding is gender blind 

Why Indigenous leadership and gender based violence are critical to the
climate finance conversation

Two of our London Climate Action Week conversations intersected to show what’s possible when climate finance follows the leadership that’s already driving results on the ground. 

‘Reimagining Climate Finance Through Centering Indigenous Women’s Leadership,’ co-hosted by the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, Mama Cash, and GAGGA, celebrated the Indigenous women already protecting an estimated 80% of the world’s biodiversity and the urgent need for climate finance to follow their leadership. As Sofía Marcía of Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean shared: “We talk about building new futures while Indigenous women are already leading the future.” The session closed with a conversation that brought together Indigenous women leaders and funders to explore what trust looks like in practice. 

‘Integrating Gender-Based Violence into Climate Finance,’ hosted by Social Development Direct, 2X Global, Womanity, and GAGGA, highlighted why climate finance must account for the safety, rights, and lived realities of women, girls, and trans, intersex and non-binary people. The session emphasized that gender-based violence (GBV) is not a separate social issue – it is a climate justice issue. Climate change and environmental degradation exacerbate GBV, while violence and insecurity limit women’s ability to participate in environmental leadership, climate adaptation and decision-making. Integrating GBV prevention and response into climate finance is therefore essential for effective and equitable climate action. 

• The Case Study of the Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Sociales y Ambientales, demonstrated how supporting women environmental human rights defenders goes beyond participation to ensuring their protection, leadership and collective resilience. Through feminist movement-building, leadership development, legal accompaniment and regional solidarity, the network addresses the multiple forms of violence women defenders face while strengthening their role in protecting territories, biodiversity and communities. The discussion reinforced that women’s leadership requires protection – not simply inclusion – and that climate finance must recognise safety as a prerequisite for effective climate action. 
• Global Affairs Canada, which has supported GAGGA through its Climate Finance Envelope since 2023, showcases how investing directly in locally led feminist climate action can simultaneously deliver climate and gender equality outcomes. By supporting GAGGA’s model of flexible, multi year funding for women-led community-based organisations, climate finance can address the structural drivers of both climate vulnerability and gender-based violence while contributing to internationally recognised frameworks such as the OECD DAC gender equality policy marker and the Rio markers on climate adaptation and mitigation. This integrated approach demonstrates that climate finance can generate “double-marker” results, advancing climate goals, gender equality and sustainable development simultaneously. 

Together, these conversations point to a powerful opportunity: when climate finance resources women led and Indigenous-led organisations directly, on their own terms, the results are stronger, safer, more equitable and built to last. 

Subscribe Past Issues Translate Read the resources below to learn more about Indigenous-led climate action and the intersection of gender-based violence and climate finance. 

• Seeds of Change: How the Women of the Mukonka Village Are Reviving Its Ecology (March 9, 2024) 
• From Local to Global: Indigenous Voices in Climate Dialogues (November 3, 2023)
• Magar Women Use Indigenous Knowledge to Mitigate Climate Change Impacts (March 7, 2022)
• Report | Structural violence: Learning from women and girl environmental defenders (March 24, 2022)
• Global warming is violence against women (November 25, 2021)
• Report key findings: Women environmental defenders on structural violence (October 19, 2021)

A Historic Step Toward a Fossil Fuel Treaty

London Climate Action Week also saw the release of a landmark outcome report from the Santa Marta Process, the first intergovernmental forum dedicated specifically to the how of a global transition away from fossil fuels. Co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, the process brought together 57 nations, representing roughly 48% of global GDP, alongside Women Environmental Human Rights Defenders, Indigenous Peoples, civil society, youth, workers, and scientists, to shape what’s now known as the Santa Marta Vision.

The report reflects the strongest global support to date for a Fossil Fuel Treaty, with 80% of participating sectors calling for a dedicated international mechanism to guide an equitable, just phase- out. This growing support reflects an increasing recognition that voluntary commitments alone areinsufficient, and that binding international agreements are needed to deliver a just transition away from fossil fuels. It was formally delivered to the COP30 Presidency during LCAW by Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Irene Vélez Torres, and the Netherlands’ Minister for Climate Policy and Green Growth, Stientje van Veldhoven.

Building on the Santa Marta outcomes, GAGGA argues that a just transition cannot stop at a fossil fuel phase-out. It must also transform the systems of finance, governance and power that have fuelled climate and environmental injustice. While international climate conferences continue to shape the policies, finance mechanisms and political commitments that affect communities worldwide, they must be informed by the realities of those on the frontlines.

For GAGGA, engaging in climate diplomacy is therefore not an endorsement of the status quo, but a way to bring feminist, Indigenous and community-led perspectives into global decision-making – providing a much-needed reality check to international climate policy. At the same time, meaningful transformation also depends on strengthening alternative political spaces where movements can challenge dominant narratives, build collective power and advance more ambitious visions for a just transition. Both are essential. Read our latest blog, Beyond the Fossil Fuel Phase-Out: GAGGA’s Call for a Feminist, Locally Led Just Transition after Santa Marta, and our policy brief, From Fossil Fuels to Gender-Just Futures: Land, Care and Livelihoods as Foundations of a Just Transition, which explore how feminist movements are already building alternatives rooted in care, land rights, ecological resilience and democratic governance.

Looking ahead, the Santa Marta Process moves to the Pacific in 2027, where Tuvalu and Ireland will co-host the second conference. Organisers have emphasized that the road ahead must turn dialogue intoconcrete, actionable frameworks, with particular attention to international cooperation, climate finance, and debt relief for Global South countries navigating the transition.

What’s Next

LCAW was just the beginning. Over the coming months, we’re taking this momentum and the Fund Forward campaign to some of the biggest gatherings to move forward in climate and environmental justice. 

UNCCD, Mongolia: August 17 – 28 

New York Climate Week: September 20 – 27 

WINGSForum: September 28 – 30 

UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17): October 19 – 30 

COP31: November 9 – 20 

At each stop, we’ll help facilitate conversations around direct, flexible, locally led climate finance that reaches the women and communities already leading the response and will bring movement actors, philanthropy and bilateral donors together in the room. 

Interested in connecting with us at any of these events, learning more about Fund Forward, or exploring how to support gender-just climate action? Reach out to Noemi Grütter at [email protected].